International Meddler
by OkayDokey33
Summary: Summary: After winning the Iron Fist Tournament, Asuka Kazama is given trip around the world… with the other Tekken fighters as her tour guides. The problem is that the other fighters are too busy with their personal lives to give Asuka a proper tour, and Asuka, being the meddler that she is, decides to help. Random stories of Asuka hanging out with the other fighters.
1. The Laws of Life (Forest and Marshall)

Summary: After winning the Iron Fist Tournament, Asuka Kazama is given trip around the world… with the other Tekken fighters as her tour guides. The problem is that the other fighters are too busy with their personal lives to give Asuka a proper tour, and Asuka, being the meddler that she is, decides to help. Random stories of Asuka hanging out with other the other fighters.

Disclaimer: I do not own Tekken.

* * *

"Aw, come on dad! Give me one good reason why you won't let me join the Iron Fist Tournament!"

"You're too young!"

"Too young?! I'm twenty five!"

"Twenty five and you still don't have any facial hair!"

"That's because I shave it all off every day! It's one of the reasons why we have a razor!"

"You must be mistaken son! I'M the reason we have a razor!"

"Alright fine! But I totally use it too!"

Asuka sighed. She was in Marshall China, a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown owned by the Law family. The food was actually pretty good, the restaurant looked cool, and Mrs. Law was really nice. The only problem right now was the father and son. When Asuka asked them if they were going to participate in the next Iron Fist Tournament, Forest said that he would be participating. Marshall, on the other hand, wouldn't allow it. They've been arguing for about ten minutes now.

Forest finally gave up. "Alright fine! You win this round, but mark my words dad! I'm going to compete in an Iron Fist Tournament eventually, and you can't stop me!" He put some dishes in the dishwasher and went to put on his jacket.

"Where exactly do you think you're going young man?!"

"Out! Don't you remember dad?! We were supposed to show Asuka around! Or are you growing senile?!"

Marshall was reaching his limit. "Okay, that does it kid! You need to learn a little something called 'respect'!"

Forest gave his father a crazed grin. "Oh really?! 'Respect' huh?! Last time I checked, one needs to earn respect to get it!"

"But I'm your father!"

"A great dad you turned out to be! How many times have you given us financial problems?!"

"One of those times was because you had an accident on one of your joyrides!"

Asuka couldn't take this anymore. "Alright, you two obviously need some space." She grabbed her jacket. "Forest, you gonna take me out or not?"

Forest looked at his father and then nodded to Asuka. "Alright."

While they were leaving, they could hear Marshall shout, "Asuka, keep my kid out of trouble all right?! He's a bit of a nut job!"

"Shut up dad!"

Asuka sighed in exasperation. "Only two more days with these guys," she thought. "Actually… that might be too much for me to handle." She was going to have to solve this problem NOW.

* * *

"Stupid old' man." Forest grumbled to himself.

Asuka heard that little remark. "You know, you're being an immature brat, you know that!?"

Forest turned to face Asuka, his anger apparent on his face. "Oh, so now you're taking his side huh?!" He looked down in frustration. "Guess I should have known. Of course the kid of a kung-fu master is wrong. I mean, how can a kung-fu master not be right? He's got masterful wisdom and stuff!"

Asuka was scratching her head in frustration. "It's not like that!" She pointed an accusing finger towards Forest. "I get that you want some freedom from your father and all, but you're doing it the wrong way!"

"What do you mean?!"

"You keep yelling at him like that and of course he's going to be defensive and argue about it! You need to be a little bit more calm about this! Bring up the topic after planning and rehearsing your points before hand or something! Don't just yell at him! He's just going to yell at you back!"

Forest looked at her, and after a moment, calmed down a little bit, and said softly, "It doesn't matter anyway. There's no way my dad will let me join a tournament outside of the dojo."

Asuka sighed again. "If you keep thinking like that than you more certainly won't!"

Forest looked at Asuka angrily. "Look, just forget about it okay?!"

"You guys were arguing right in front of me in your own restaurant! How am I supposed to forget about something that happened in front of me!? Heck! You were doing it in public in your own restaurant! If there were more people in there, then they would have just as much right as I have to talk some sense into you two!"

"I said just forget about it! You're only staying for two more days anyway! You can survive two more days can't you?!"

"I know dang well that you guys are gonna talk about this again, and listening to you whining and your dad yelling isn't exactly fun for me; and I'm pretty sure it's no fun for your mom either! Mark my words! I'm going to end this spat today, because believe me, I'm not going to go through this for TWO MORE DAYS!"

Forest stepped back in fear and forced his mouth shut. Asuka had won the previous Iron Fist Tournament, and was known to break up fights in her home country by beating all the participants up. Forest didn't understand that logic, but he knew that if you encountered that type of person, who was dangerous and had that type of questionable logic, it was best to keep your mouth shut when they were angry.

Asuka calmed down and said, "Sorry for yelling, but this is a pretty serious problem ya know! It's obvious that neither of you are gonna back down!"

Forest looked down dejectedly. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

Just then, the two heard a child cry, "Mommy, Daddy! Look! It's the guy who gave us all that money!"

Asuka and Forest looked to find a boy running up to them, with his parents following closely behind.

Forest recognized the family. "Hey! It's you guys!"

"Who are these guys?" Asuka asked.

Forest looked at Asuka and explained, "I ran off once and won an Iron Fist Tournament. The prize was a check with a lot of zeroes (I can't remember how many)! My friend Paul and I were going to use it to live it up in Vegas, but while we were riding there, we saw this family's house up in flames. They were about to lose everything, so we gave them the prize money."

Asuka smiled. "That's really kind of you."

"It was," the father said. "You really helped us out back then. Is there anything we can do to repay you?"

Forest waved it off. "Naw, it's alright. I can't think of anything anyway." He let out a laugh.

"But there must be something we can do!" said the mother. "You gave us the entire check! You had nothing left!"

Asuka's eyes grew. "So wait. You came back home with nothing left?"

Forest scratched his head in embarrassment. "Yeah, my dad was really mad at me. He was all like 'You didn't even save some of it?! Do you have not understand the value of a dollar son!?'" Forest sighed. "He really chewed me out that day."

Asuka couldn't believe this. "Didn't you tell him what happened?" Forest shook his head. "Well why not?"

Forest shrugged. "I don't know. I guess it just felt good to help someone else and keep it as my little secret, I guess." Forest picked the boy up and started playing with him.

Asuka smiled to herself. "Maybe I _can_ end this today."

* * *

"WHAT?!" Marshall screamed. "You want me to let Forest participate in these tournaments?!"

Forest looked as shocked as his dad. "Seriously Asuka? You're defending me on this?!" Asuka nodded. Forest was overjoyed. "Oh thank you Asuka! Thank you!"

"Now wait just a minute!" Marshall said holding his hand up in protest. "What she says doesn't mean a thing! I'm still your father and my decision is final!"

"No offense sir." Asuka said calmly. "But Forest needs to… well… grow up! And he can't do that if he's cooped up in here all the time!"

Forest had an annoyed look on his face. "Geez thanks Asuka."

Asuka pulled him close. "Just let me finish," she hissed. She then directed her attention to Marshall once again. "Mr. Law, do you remember when your son won a lot of prize money and came back with none left?"

Marshall crossed his arms. "Yeah, what's your point?"

"My point is that Forest used that money to help a family that was in dire need! I just met them today! They were really grateful to him. So grateful, in fact, that they were willing to pay him back for the money they owed, but he refused!"

Mr. Law looked shocked. Mrs. Law looked impressed. She turned to her son. "Is that true Forest?"

Forest was in shock right now. Someone was on his side for once, on purpose, and that person was arguing with his parents, and that person was winning! For now, Forest just nodded wildly.

Asuka continued, "You see, your son is a pretty irresponsible kid. He's also careless, and immature, and loud, and obnoxious, and… well… let's face it, he's an idiot; but when I saw him with that family, I saw a different side of him. A much more mature side. Your son's going to be a good man someday… but only if you let him go. He needs to experience things for himself in order to grow as a person, or else, he's not gonna grow. Let's see…." Asuka thought for a moment. "If there's a car in a race… and it needs to make a pit stop… and let's say this pit stop keeps the car from continuing in the race… it'll obviously not finish the race. It's may be safer at the pit stop, but the car needs to finish the race sooner or later, and better soon than later, right? Or maybe that was a bad example." Asuka scratched her head in frustration. "Maybe I should have thought this through a little bit more."

"No, no." Mrs. Law said, raising her hand to stop her. "We get it, right honey?"

"Wait, what race are we talking about, an extreme race, or a derby?"

Mrs. Law elbowed her husband in annoyance. "That's not the point."

"Um… yeah!" Asuka was glad she at least had Mrs. Law on her side. "The point is, I think you need to let your son go to tournaments in order for him to mature as a person!"

"Yeah dad!" Forest said. "I need to mature as a person!"

Asuka pointed an accusing finger at Forest. "Don't get all saucy kid! Wrecking a friend's bike after taking a joyride on it?! Teaching your father and friend a suicide move called the 'suicide kip-up'?! Causing traffic accidents?! One time by flinging some nun-chucks out the window!?"

"Wait who told you about all that?!"

"Your mom!"

"Aw Mom!"

"Don't whine! Even you have to admit that you've done some pretty stupid, not to mention dangerous stuff!" Asuka calmed down and calmly motioned to Forest's parents. "You've got a family that cares about you and worries about you! The least you can do is lessen their worries by living a little bit more on the smart side!"

Forest scratched his head and blushed in embarrassment. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

Marshall was shocked. He knew how hard it was to admit you were wrong, and his son was doing just that! Marshall scratched his head and said slowly. "You know… maybe it would be a good idea to let you… compete in some tournaments… outside of the dojo."

Forest looked at his father in shock. "Wait… seriously dad?!"

Marshall smiled at his son. "Yeah… I guess it was wrong for your old man to keep you all cooped at home, huh? From what I heard today, I apparently raised a good kid. And you know what the sad part is? I was too worried about my son to see it!" Marshall looked down at the ground in shame. "Just promise me one thing son."

Forest walked slowly to his father and asked quietly. "What… dad?"

Marshall looked up again to reveal a comedic face, spouting out tears like a fountain. "Just remember to brush your teach twice a day and floss once a day!"

Forest was starting to tear up too. "What do you mean dad?" He sniffled.

"Well," Marshall said in between sobs. "If you're going to grow as a person, and if it means you have to leave the house to do it then you're going to have to live on your own and, you know, have your own apartment or something!"

Forest started sobbing as hard as his dad by this point. He embraced his dad and shouted, "Aw dad! You know I'd never leave you guys!"

"Don't worry about me son!" Marshall hugged back, sobbing even harder now. "This is the part of your life that I've been trying to avoid all this time, but now I need to accept the facts! I'm going to let you go now! It'll be tough, but I'll manage… somehow!"

"No dad!" Forest was crying harder too. "I mean the pay here is lousy! I couldn't afford my own place even if I wanted to!"

"Then I'll lend you some money!"

"No dad, I'll find my own way to raise the money! I'll show you how much of a man I can be!"

"There's no shame in asking for money son!"

"Yeah, but… I don't want to have financial troubles like you do!"

Marshall was bawling now. "That's my son!"

Forest was bawling with his father now. "I love you too dad!"

Asuka looked at the scene in front of her awkwardly. What was she supposed to do now?

Mrs. Law went up to Asuka, put her hand on her shoulder, and said with a smile, "Thank you."

Asuka smiled at Mrs. Law. "No problem! This is kind of my shtick anyway! Maybe now I can enjoy my last two days here!" She looked at the two sobbing men hugging each other on the ground. "But… are they really going to be alright?" With these two, she wasn't really sure.


	2. Baek the Chain with a Boom-Hwoarang

Note: After a long time, this story makes a comeback!

* * *

"Oh my gosh!" Asuka gushed. "They have it!"

Baek Doo San, Asuka's current tour guide, raised one of his eyebrows. "Have what?"

Asuka showed him the face of the album she was holding. "The newest album from my favorite K-pop band! Come on Baek, we're inside a music store in the CD section! What else could I possibly find here that they possibly have?"

Baek looked at the face of the album and raised his eyebrows once again in surprise. "I didn't think you were the type to like boy bands."

Asuka snatched the album away with a little blush on her face. "W-well that's not my fault Mr. Judgmental!" She wagged her index finger at him. "And I AM a girl you know! Who says I can't be girly over one or two things?!" She crossed her arms proudly. "You should see my room! I've got a couple of dolls and stuffed animals too! Just goes to show that there's more to someone than what meets the eye!"

Baek raised his eyebrows in surprise again. "You're proud of that?"

Asuka nodded. "If you're not proud of yourself, then it's your responsibility to change yourself into a person that you're more proud of. And I don't see any reason for me to change just yet!" She walked toward the cash register to buy the album.

Baek followed her in confusion. "You're going to buy that? But how can you enjoy the music when you won't know what they're saying?"

Asuka gave Baek a cross look. "The beats, the harmonies, the ballads, there's more than one way to enjoy music ya' know! And besides," she pointed an accusing finger at Baek, "I'm talking to you right now and we understand each other just fine!"

Baek scratched his chin and muttered to himself, "Yes, how does that work exactly?"

Asuka shrugged. "How should I know?" She turned around and looked at the number on the cash register, paid what she needed, and took her album. She put it in her bag and they walked out of the store.

As they were walking, Asuka decided to start up a conversation. "Sorry for dragging you out of the house again."

Baek held his hand up in protest. "No, no, it's fine. I need to get out more anyway."

Asuka frowned. "Yeah, but you already took me out yesterday. Today was supposed to be Hwoarang's turn." She crossed her arms and frowned. "Where is he anyway?"

Baek shrugged. "I don't really know myself. He's always out, doing his own thing, but lately I haven't seen him as much as I used to." He chuckled to himself. "Maybe he wants some time to himself, away from the "old man" he hangs out with."

Asuka frowned as they continued walking. She would have made the argument that that was probably not the case, but since she knew very little about the two, any argument she would have made would have probably not been a very strong one, so until she found out more about what exactly was going on, she would just keep silent about it and try to subtly cheer Baek up until then.

* * *

It was the morning of the third day Asuka had with Baek and Hwoarang. She had gotten up early to get some early training in, and was walking through the hallway of Baek's house when, suddenly, she saw Hwoarang standing suspiciously near the door to the dojo. He was standing beside the open door, and looked as if he was listening in to what was going on inside. She hid herself from view behind the corner of the hallway and decided to see what was going on.

Hwoarang stretched his hands above his head and said, rather loudly, "Yikes, guess I overslept." He paused for a second before he added, "I hope the master's not upset. Uh-oh, he's probably pissed. Guess I can't blame him. What else should I expect?"

"What's going on here?" Asuka thought. "What's with this bad acting?"

"Hwoarang!" A scream came out from the dojo. It sounded like Baek's voice. "Sleeping in again? Give me 1000 push-ups!"

Hwoarang scratched his head sheepishly and said, "Aw man, I've been found out! This just isn't my day!" He went inside the dojo to get started on his push-ups.

Asuka waited for a little while before entering into the dojo herself. When she went in, she saw Hwoarang on the floor, doing his push-ups and Baek standing in front of him, arms crossed and towering over him. She walked up to Baek and asked, "Can I steel you for a moment?" She pointed towards a corner of the dojo. Baek nodded and followed her there, leaving Hwoarang alone in the middle of the dojo doing push-ups.

Hwoarang was about to stop, but Baek caught him and said, "Don't you dare stop on me or you're doing an extra 500!"

Hwoarang cringed while trying to push himself back up. "Aw, come on!"

Baek turned his attention back to Asuka. "What would you like to speak to me about?"

"Well…" Asuka was about to speak before she caught a sight at Hwoarang, looking intently on the discussion. Maybe asking Baek to talk about what she just saw wasn't a good idea… yet. "I was just going to ask you if I could spar with Hwoarang later, but apparently with all the push-ups you've given him he won't even be able to stand, so I thought maybe… um… you could spar with me?"

Baek raised an eyebrow in surprise. Asuka tried giving him an innocent smile, which seemed to do the trick because he said, "Okay, then. I'm just going to warn you that, just like what you said the other day about appearances being deceiving, I'm not as old and frail as you think! I've still got some energy in these "old" bones of mine and I can still… "sock it to 'em"!" Baek laughed at his own joke, while Asuka and Hwoarang both cringed. Then, he turned to Hwoarang and said, "And I'll just warn YOU that after you're done with all those push-ups, I'll have a lot more in store for you! So you better not get tired!"

"Y-yes sir." Hwoarang said, obviously already out of breath.

"Ah, you can't be tired yet!" Asuka teased. She turned to Baek. "You know, you can't just make him do one thing at a time!" She flashed an evil smile at Hwoarang, who was hoping that she wouldn't suggest what he thought she was going to suggest. "Back home, I'd do a lap around the neighborhood, do a couple of squats, a couple of sit-ups, a couple of other workouts added to that, then repeat that a couple more times!"

Baek laughed. "Well if the winner of the Iron Fist Tournament did that type of workout and won, then surely that's what Hwoarang should do too!" He turned to an exhausted and angry Hwoarang, who was still struggling to do his push-ups. "Hwoarang! Do 100 laps around the neighborhood, and after every lap, do 1000 push-ups, 1000 sit-ups, 1000 squats, 1000 one minute shadow-boxing sets, 1000 jumping jacks, and end it all off with 1000 lunges!"

Hwoarang looked up and said, "But that's impossible! Not to mention that that type of workout would take anyone all day to complete!"

Baek wagged his finger at his student. "Well it could've all been avoided if you hadn't been late!" Baek laughed and turned to Asuka. "We'll spar after he finishes his push-ups and leaves."

"You mean I still have to finish these push-ups first!?" Hwoarang screamed.

Baek looked at Hwoarang and said, "Don't question me! Keep going or I'll double it!"

Hwoarang grumbled and he looked at Asuka, who was waving at him with a smirk on her face. "I hate Kazamas," he hissed to himself, and continued doing his workout.

* * *

It was late at night, and Hwoarang had just crawled back to his room after finishing his workout. Everything in his body ached and he wanted to get some sleep right away, but he couldn't stand the smell of grass and dirt on him and feeling just too plain dirty to go to bed, so he took a hot, relaxing shower first. The moment he finished, he put on some boxers and an undershirt and was about to go to the underrated paradise known as the bed when, all of a sudden, a knock came from the door. Hwoarang groaned and slowly walked towards his bedroom door, huffed a bit, and opened it. To his shock, and anger, it was Asuka.

Hwoarang, through gritted teeth, hissed, "You…have a lot of nerve… to be showing… YOUR face… here."

Asuka raised an indifferent eyebrow. "Really?" she asked. She had walked into his room.

Hwoarang closed the door and turned, looking at her with a deranged look on his face. "Do you realize what you've put me through today? Do you realize the pain, the time wasted, the sweat, blood and tears I had to go through to finish that workout from this morning!?"

Asuka wasn't really paying attention. She was instead focusing her attention on picking something out of her nail. "Hmm?" she looked up from what she was doing.

Hwoarang's anger was reaching its peak. "I have been training from seven in the morning until…" he looked at his clock quickly, "ten o' clock at night!"

Asuka raised her hand up lazily to indicate him to stop. "Okay, first of all, it wasn't my fault that Baek gave you THAT much, alright? I usually only do 50 of each on the weekends. I'm in high school for crying out loud. I don't have the time to do that type of workout every day."

Hwoarang sighed angrily and ran his hand down his face in frustration. "All you Kazamas are going to be the death of me, I swear!" he muttered to himself.

Asuka was about to make the argument that no one in their right mind would put so much effort into killing him, but there were much more important matters to attend to, so she let that remark slide. "Secondly," she continued, "it's not my fault that you were put into that situation! I saw you ya' know!"

Hwoarang jumped up a little bit from this statement and asked slowly, "What do you mean by that?"

Asuka crossed her arms. "I saw that little "act" of yours! What's going on? You've been gone for the past couple of days, you've barely spoken to Baek, and now you're doing these little "acts" of yours! I want an explanation!" She pointed an accusing finger toward the Korean hotshot.

Hwoarang stared at the finger, then stared at her, then put his hands behind his head, pretending that what she said didn't affect him, and said lazily, "How should I know?! What do you mean the little "act" of mine? You're not making any sense!" He turned around and walked lazily away from Asuka to the other side of the room.

Asuka put her hands on her hips. Fine, if he was going to play this type of game, then he left her with no choice. "I'll tell Baek," she said simply.

Hwoarang spun around suddenly when he heard what she said. "What?"

Asuka nodded. "You heard me! I'll tell him what I saw! Then you'll have to explain yourself to Baek, and let's be honest, I'm pretty sure Baek knows you well enough to know when you're lying!"

Hwoarang laughed awkwardly and shook his head, pretending that what she was saying was completely ridiculous. "Tell him something you saw that never really happened?! Ha! That's a laugh!" He continued to laugh maniacally.

Asuka narrowed her eyes. "I'm not blind Hwoarang," she said in a low, firm voice.

Hwoarang stopped his act and looked at her dumbfoundedly. He sighed, threw his arms into the air and let them come crashing down next to his sides to indicate that he had given up, came up to Asuka and said quietly, "Look, you've got to promise that you won't tell Baek."

Asuka looked at him intently for a moment. He really did look serious. She nodded, deciding to play along for the moment.

Hwoarang looked at the door, opened it, looked both ways to make sure no one would be eavesdropping on the conversation, closed the door, locked it, and walked toward Asuka before whispering to her, "I'm throwing Baek a party."

Asuka's face softened. "What?" she asked quietly.

Hwoarang nodded, while scratching the back of his head awkwardly in embarrassment. "Yeah, I'm throwing him a surprise party." He sighed, walked towards his bed, sat down, held his hands together, looked down and said softly, "Did Baek ever tell you about what happened to his father?"

Asuka shook her head. "No… no he didn't." Since when did things get so serious?

Hwoarang nodded in understanding. "Okay, well…" he rubbed his eyes for a moment before continuing. "Baek… killed his father when he was still a boy."

Asuka gasped. For a moment, nothing was said, until finally she asked in a quiet voice, "How?"

Hwoarang shrugged. "I don't know, and I don't think he knows either." He was silent for a moment before speaking again. "Despite the fact that he's said that he's forgiven himself and moved on… I think it's still hard for him to forget." He looked up at Asuka. "You know?"

Asuka nodded. "Yeah."

Hwoarang rubbed his face again. "I just… don't like seeing him that way." He rested his hands on the part of the bed that was behind him, and used that to support his body as he looked up at the ceiling. "I never knew my parents. …I was alone, on my own, on the streets… when all of a sudden… Baek offered me a spot in his place… in exchange for being one of his Tae Kwon Do students." He sighed. "I did just that. I studied Tae Kwon Do from the master… but instead of using it for self-defense or the ability to help others in need, I used it to gamble. I must have made… what?" He shook his head and laughed softly. "I can't even remember how much money we made, but it was a lot, and I mean A LOT. Then, this Jin Kazama and his guys came onto our street and I challenged him to a fight. All I could muster up was a draw." He shook his head and rested his elbows on his knees. "I was so mad at myself. I went back to Baek and told him exactly what happened and asked if he could make me stronger so that I could beat him the next time we met. He must have been so disappointed in me, using everything he taught me, just for the sake of beating someone up …but he trained me anyway. He trained me… even though the only reason I wanted him to train me was for selfish purposes. I didn't realize it at first, but after a while, that was when I started to think that the old man was pretty cool." Hwoarang smiled to himself, and laughed softly. He scratched his head and kept going with his story. "Then, one day, I got injured fighting Jin. …He had this thing… I don't know what he calls it, but it looked like he turned himself into a devil. …No matter how much I tried, I couldn't even muster the strength to lift a finger against him. The guy knocked me out in no time flat. Despite the fact that I was unconscious, I could still hear everything that was happening around me. I could hear the ambulance take me to the hospital, I could hear the doctors and nurses rushing me into the Emergency Room, I could remember… Baek coming to visit and blaming himself for the situation I put myself in." Hwoarang rubbed his face again. "That was the moment when I realized that Baek wasn't just my instructor anymore…. He was my father." He scratched the back of his head in embarrassment.

Asuka smiled as Hwoarang told her his story. It made her think about her dad, and how special he was to her.

"I don't like seeing him like this. All depressed and thinking he's a bad person and all." Hwoarang looked at Asuka for the first time since he started telling her his story. "I want to show him that he's a great guy, and that I appreciate what he's done for me, no matter how little I've done for him. I thought a surprise party would do the trick." He rubbed his face in exhaustion. "But I haven't been able to buy everything I wanted to get for the party yet. And with today's workout taking all day, I'm DEFINITELY behind schedule now."

Asuka slowly sat next to Hwoarang and asked softly, "So the reason you put on that act was because he was being depressed and all, and you wanted to divert his thoughts onto something else, right?"

Hwoarang rubbed his nose and smiled, saying, "Yeah, something like that."

Asuka sighed. "I guess I have no choice." She stood up and, hands on her hips, and said, "Looks like I'm going to help you out!"

Hworang gasped. "Seriously?"

Asuka laughed. "Of course! I love parties! And since I know about this one, I have no choice but to help out! Besides," she softened her gaze at Hwoarang, "after what you just told me, I want to cheer Baek up too."

Hwoarang stared at her in disbelief for a moment, before finally getting his bearings and returning to his old energetic self. "Alright then, we have no time to waste!" He went to his desk drawer and took out a list. Less than half the things on the list were crossed off. "We'll split the work." He split the list into two. "You'll get this half of the stuff." He gave her one of the halves. "And I'll take care of the others." He indicated the other half in his hand. He then started telling her the game plan. Asuka nodded after he finished. Hwoarang smiled. "I guess some of you Kazamas aren't so bad after all!"

* * *

Baek was walking through his house, looking for any sign of life in it, except of him. Where was everyone? The moment he asked himself that question, Asuka appeared before him, down the hall, waving frantically at him.

"Baek!"

Baek walked up to her and asked, "What is it?"

Asuka had an annoyed look on her face. "Hwoarang's got himself into a fight in the dojo! I would have stopped him, but no matter how much I tried he always gets back up again, and no matter what I say he just ignores me! Talk some sense into him, why don't you?!"

Baek sighed. This was the type of thing that Hwoarang would get himself into. He quickly walked toward his dojo's doors and screamed, "Hwoarang, stop what you're doing this instant!"

What awaited him, however, was not a fight in a messed up dojo, but darkness. Before he could turn on the lights, Asuka pushed him inside and closed the dojo doors. Now it was complete darkness, and Baek couldn't even see his own hand in front of his face. "Hwoarang! Asuka! What is the meaning of this!?" he screamed.

Just then, Asuka turned on the lights, and Baek, in shock, looked at the spectacle before him. The dojo was completely decorated with streamers, the ceiling completely covered with balloons, and the room completely filled with tables full of treats, food, cakes and drinks. There was even a chocolate fountain. As Baek stood by the door, flabbergasted, he saw, to his surprise, Hwoarang, wearing a party hat, blowing a kazoo and pulling the string to a party popper. He was so surprised by this spectacle that he was caught completely by surprise when Asuka did the same, and, with a big smile on her face, led him towards his pupil, who gave him a hug.

Baek was still in shock when he asked Hwoarang. "What is all this?"

Asuka patted Baek on the back and said, "This is a surprise party… for you!"

Baek's eyes grew wide in surprise. "…F-f-for me?" he asked, pointing at himself.

Asuka nodded happily. "Yeah!" She indicated towards Hwoarang. "Hwoarang planned it all out!"

Baek looked at and embarrassed Hwoarang in astonishment. "Y-you did all this… for me?"

Hwoarang scratched the back of his head out of embarrassment. "Yeah. This is all for you." He let out a little laugh. "I just wanted to show you how much I appreciate what you've done for me, and how… no matter how much I messed up or anything… you were there for me, and I wanted you to know that no matter what happened in the past… you're a great guy now… and I believe you were a great guy back then too… so…." Hwoarang shook his head and looked down in embarrassment, "I don't know. Something."

Asuka frowned. Was this seriously the best Hwoarang could muster? Pretty weak if you asked her.

Baek smiled and put a firm, reassuring hand on Hwoarang's shoulder. "Don't worry about it. I understand what you're trying to say. And thank you."

Hwoarang smiled, and, as they both looked at each other, they slowly and awkwardly got into a quick hug before Hwoarang quickly pulled out of it, embarrassed. He wasn't used to all this mushy stuff. When that happened however, Hwoarang heard a click. He looked around, and, to his shock, saw Asuka with a Polaroid camera in her hand.

"Please, tell me you didn't…."

Asuka gave him a little smirk. "Oh yeah, I totally did." The picture developed while she said this, and she took the picture out of the camera with a smile. She laughed. "You guys look so cute together," she gushed.

Hwoarang blushed. "Give me that!" He rushed at her and tried to take the picture away from her, but it was no use.

Baek stopped him before things got nasty. "Hwoarang, stop," he commanded. He then turned his attention to Asuka. "If you don't mind, can I have that picture please?"

Hwoarang let out a sigh of relief. "To rip it up later, right?"

Baek shook his head. "No. I want to keep it. To remember the best student I've ever had." He looked at Hwoarang and added, "Don't worry, I'll keep it to myself."

He smiled at Hwoarang, who smiled back. "Alright, fine."

Asuka smiled at the scene. They really did look cute together. Despite their differences.

Baek looked around the room once more and let out a heavy sigh. "But seriously though. You two didn't have to go do all of this for me!" He indicated the entire room. "Don't you think this is a little much?"

Asuka put a reassuring hand on Baek's shoulder. "For you… not at all!" She flashed him a smile.

Hwoarang put a reassuring hand on Baek's other shoulder. "Yeah, you deserve it!" He crossed his arms and looked at his work proudly. "Besides, I didn't even have to spend a single won on this!"

Baek and Asuka looked at each other with surprised looks on their faces, and Baek carefully asked, "What do you mean, you didn't spend a single won on this?"

Hwoarang shooed the question off, and said simply, "Oh, I used your credit card."

A moment of silence passed before Baek asked slowly (and angrily), "…What?"

"Yeah, I used your credit card. I was flat out broke, so I used your credit card to buy all these things for your surprise party." Hwoarang, oblivious to Baek's anger, gave him a friendly elbow to the side. "Just think of it as you buying yourself something nice!"

"Wait a minute." Asuka said, putting herself into the conversation. How could she not after what she just heard? "What about all that money you won from all your gambling?"

Hwoarang looked at the ceiling for a little bit, thinking, before looking at Asuka and saying innocently, "Oh, I spent that money a long time ago."

Baek had recovered from his initial shock, and asked, "But what about all that money you received for your service in the South Korean military?"

Hwoarang smiled, "I used all that money to buy that motorcycle I use every day!" He laughed and shook his head. "Man, that thing cost an arm and a leg! I only had a small chunk of my savings left!" He shook his head and crossed his arms as his face turned angry. "And I had to use every little bit of it to pay for the speeding ticket I got for racing against Jin!" Hwoarang looked at Asuka. "And he got off scotch free! Made it look like I was speeding down the highway like an idiot while he was innocently driving along! Tch! Innocently driving along my butt!"

"So let me get this straight." Asuka said, rubbing her temples in frustration and anger. "You have no money, no money at all?!"

Hwoarang looked at her strangely. "Yeah." What was she leading up to?

"You realize… that I had to pay for the stuff on my half of the list… right?" Asuka asked slowly.

Hwoarang smiled. "Yeah, you really came through for me. I will never forget this."

Asuka was trying hard to keep herself from blowing up. "I originally thought that you had the money for both halves of the list… so that after I bought everything that was on my half of the list, you would pay me back later."

Hwoarang laughed. "Well that's not really my fault is it?" He hit Asuka good naturedly on the shoulder. "That's what you get for assuming!"

Asuka was reaching her breaking point. "Did you even get a present for him?" she asked, pointing at Baek, who was also trying to keep himself under control.

Hwoarang's eyes lit up. "Oh yeah! I did!" He went over to his backpack, and got out a card. He gave it to Baek. "Here you go!"

Baek slowly took the card and examined it, with Asuka doing just that over his shoulder. It was a plain, store bought card. In it was a long piece of paper. Baek took it out and asked, "What is this?"

Hwoarang put his hands in his pants pockets. "Oh, that's the bill."

Baek and Asuka's eyes grew wide as they looked at the bottom of the piece of paper. There were way too many zeroes to count.

Asuka cringed. "Please tell me Korean money always looks like that."

Baek said in a shaky voice, "I wish it did."

Hwoarang was oblivious to their plight. "Okay then guys! Let's dig in!" He looked at the chocolate fountain. "I've always wanted to eat out of one of these!" He was oblivious to the two angry figures behind him.

Sadly, there was nothing anyone could do to stop them from letting all that anger out. "HWOARANG!" Asuka and Baek cried.

* * *

For the next month, Hwoarang spent a majority of his days outdoors.

Because it was just plain ridiculous to wear sunglasses indoors.

* * *

Note: For those who don't understand, Hwoarang has two black eyes, one from Baek and one from Asuka.


	3. Ala-Kazama! I Mishima the Light!

"Hello?!" Asuka cried, "Is anybody out here?!" Nothing but echo. With a worried look on her face, Asuka nervously looked around. "What's going on here?" she asked herself. Last thing she remembered, she had flown back to Japan after she had received a letter from her father, asking her to, if possible, come back home for a special occasion. The special occasion? The anniversary of the death of their relative, Jun Kazama.

After Asuka had reunited with her parents at the airport in Kagoshima, she was given the proper attire for a funeral. She got dressed, and the family then drove to the Kagoshima port, and boarded the first ferry sailing for Yakushima. As the ferry slowly sailed toward its destination, Asuka sat down on one of the ferry's benches, yawned, stretched her arms out, and wiped a tear forming from the corner of her eye. She leaned forward, setting her elbows on her knees and placing her head in her hands, bored out of her mind.

"Ah jeez. What am I gonna do now?" she thought, staring absentmindedly at the endless amount of ocean, blue skies, and clouds. "I know that this is important and everything, but sailing from Kagoshima to Yakushima isn't exactly like biking to the supermarket. It's going to take four hours at best. I wouldn't mind so much, except…," she looked around, "there's nothing to do on this thing! And there doesn't seem to be anybody else on this boat that I can talk to… unless you count my parents." Asuka groaned. "Like I can get a good time out of those two." She loved her parents and all, but the closest thing to a good time that she ever had with them alone was when they all played Smash and Shield Rock-Paper-Scissors… back when she was six.

She yawned again. "Maybe I should get some shut eye," Asuka thought. "I didn't get that much sleep last night and it would at least pass the time. I'm sure mom and dad would understand, and it's not like there's anyone else on this boat to stare at me while I sleep or something. And besides," Asuka felt around the bench, "this bench isn't so bad, and it looks big enough for me to lie down on." Having convinced herself of the idea, she lay down on the bench, adjusted her body in a comfortable position, covered her eyes with her arm to shade them from the sun, and slowly went to sleep.

It all seemed innocent enough, but apparently sleeping had transported her into the great unknown, a great unknown that was completely pitch-black, that didn't seem to have anything physical in it except the floor, and that had the creepiness of a horror movie. Asuka wrapped herself in her arms and shivered. There was something about this place that just didn't sit right with her.

Silence. Utter silence for a minute, a minute that seemed like an hour. Asuka hated to admit it, but she was starting to get scared.

"This place is really giving me the creeps," Asuka muttered nervously to herself. "If something doesn't happen soon, I might just go insane!"

Just then, Asuka heard a terrifying roar from above. Asuka quickly looked up to see what was above her, and she couldn't believe her eyes.

"W-what is that?" Asuka thought to herself, eyes wide, shock apparent across her face, legs planted to the ground, unable to move out of fear. There was something about the thing that looked human, but then again, what kind of human would have horns on his head, great big wings, claws and a tail? Asuka gulped as sweat gradually came down her forehead as she came towards the answer to her own question. "A-a devil," she said to herself. "What else could it be?" Her mind raced furiously. "Should I run?" She hit herself on the head. "Stupid! Of course I should run! It's the freakin' devil!" Asuka looked around frantically. "But where could I possibly run to, where could I possibly hide behind?! There's literally nothing here! Ah!" Asuka shook her head and ruffled her hair with her hands. "This is a total nightmare!" A sudden realization dawned on her. "Oh wait, that's right! It's a nightmare!" Asuka grinned to herself. "All I have to do is pinch myself and this will all be over in a flash!" With closed eyes and a smug look on her face, Asuka pinched herself as hard as she could. After a few seconds of nothing happening, Asuka pinched herself again, but harder. After a third try at waking herself up, Asuka started to panic. "Why isn't it working?!" She tried again and again, but to no avail. "This… is… not… happening!" She looked up, desperately hoping that the devil had not spotted her. To her astonishment, it didn't spot her. In fact, now that she was looking at it more closely, it was focusing all of its attention at something else entirely.

After hesitating at first, curiosity eventually got the better of her, and she followed the gaze of the devil to see what it was looking at. When Asuka finally caught sight of what the devil was looking at, she couldn't help but be amazed. What the devil was looking at was a beautiful woman in a white dress with beautiful, white wings. "An angel," Asuka said to herself, awestruck.

The angel and devil glared at each other for a moment. Then, with no warning whatsoever, the two flew towards each other and started fighting each other. Asuka couldn't believe her eyes. "A battle… between an angel and a devil? But why? Why is this happening? And why am I seeing this?" As if responding to her questions, everything around her suddenly changed. One second they were in complete darkness, the next they were all at the top of a burning, active volcano.

This was just getting weirder and weirder. "What's going on here?!" Asuka demanded to no one in particular. As Asuka was growing more and more confused by the second, Angel and Devil's fight in the air had escalated. They had started using their laser beams, and the collateral damage to the volcano made it even more dangerous. The ground shook below Asuka, the lava splashed to dangerous heights, the smoke, fire and heat made the sky look red, and all the ash, dirt and ember flying around made things harder to see on the ground.

As Asuka covered her eyes from the clouds of ash, dirt, and ember, she noticed something inside all of the chaos on the ground. As the clouds slowly started to recede, Asuka finally saw what that "something" was. Just as Devil and Angel were having an intense fight in the air, two men were having an intense fight on the ground. One of the men she didn't recognize, but she took note of the fact that his arms were covered with scars (his chest having a pretty big one), one red eye, and hair gelled back as far as humanly possible. The other, however, was a man she recognized. The man who had slipped a feel on her in the fifth Iron Fist Tournament, the man who had declared war against the entire world, the man who she couldn't believe that she was related to: Jin Kazama.

"You!" Asuka cried, pointing an accusing finger at Jin, "What the heck are you doing here?! And what do you think you're doing?! Can't you see that this isn't the time and place for a fight, you idiot?!" Asuka turned to the other man. "Same goes for you too! What's the matter with you guys?!" Despite all of her loud cries against the two, neither of them even acknowledged Asuka's presence. Instead, the two simply continued glaring at each other, panting and wiping some of the dust off their faces. The two continued to glare at each other for several moments, before they finally resumed their fight. Not yet understanding what was going on, and hating being ignored, Asuka cracked her knuckles and started running towards the two with an annoyed look on her face. "It's not polite to ignore someone that's talking to you!" she cried, as she was readying herself to put the both of them in a headlock, but instead of making any physical contact whatsoever, she phased right through them. Asuka blinked as she forced herself to a halt. "Wait…," she looked at the two, wide eyed, "what just happened?"

She walked up to them slowly. They didn't seem to notice her, and just kept on fighting each other. Asuka hesitated before reaching her hand out and trying to touch one of them. To her shock, her hand went right through Jin. Asuka stared at the two men in front of her, and then took a moment to look at the angel and devil fighting in the sky. Were these two fights connected somehow, and if they were, why?

Again, the universe seemed to respond to her question. In the air, the angel and the devil had stopped using their laser beams, and were now in close combat, while on the ground Jin was starting to lose his fight against the scarred man. The scarred man let out an arrogant laugh, cracked his knuckles and suddenly, he was enveloped by some kind of dark energy. When the dark energy finally subsided, Asuka saw that he had somehow transformed his body to look almost identical to the devil's. The demonic man laughed again, and fired a laser beam at Jin through his eye.

Asuka was about to scream in horror at what might very well have been a man's incineration, but instead, held her breath just in time. Before hitting Jin, the laser was stopped midway by another laser attack, a laser from Jin himself. Just as the demonic man did, Jin's body also enveloped itself in dark energy, and, once that energy faded away, turned him into a devil too, however it was less monstrous then the scarred man's and the devil's appearance. Jin still looked mostly human, but he had raven-like wings, horns, claws and chains around his waist and pants. As the two lasers were deadlocked at each other, Jin slowly stood back up. Seeing his enemy getting back up to his feet, the scarred man screamed, his laser becoming more powerful as a result, and in response, Jin screamed too, amplifying the power of his laser as well. They were now in a stalemate more intense than the one before, and neither side looked like they were willing to back down.

For a while, the two simply stayed like that, neither laser beam letting the other one get the better of them. Meanwhile, the battle between the devil and the angel had finally come to ground level. Slowly descending to the ground, the two were at a stalemate of their own. The angel holding onto the devil's horns and the devil trying to pry her using his own hands.

The two groups just stood where they were, struggling for a while, before the devil looked at the two demonic fighters, and asked, "Why?" He turned back to the angel, "Why hasn't my influence been as strong on him as it was and always has been on Kazuya?"

"Kazuya?" Asuka thought. "So… the other guy's name is Kazuya, huh?"

"What," the devil continued, "have you possibly been doing differently to him that you have not already yet done with Kazuya?" He tightened his grip on the angel's hands on his horns. "What is his secret?"

The angel didn't say anything. She only continued to glare at the devil until finally she let out a deafening scream, which resulted in a powerful white laser coming out of her mouth, hitting the devil straight in the face. For a while, the devil was screaming in pain at the attack, but then retaliated with a laser of his own. The strength of the devil's laser must have been more powerful than it usually was, because it quickly outmatched the angel's laser and pushed her off of the devil's horns and sent her crashing into a large boulder, the force of her flying body shattering the boulder instantly.

As the devil turned the tables in his fight, "Kazuya", seconds later, had done the same. His laser, for that brief period of time, was suddenly stronger than Jin's and sent Jin flying backward. Laughing, Kazuya slowly started to walk toward his injured opponent, so injured in fact, that Jin, despite his efforts, couldn't push himself back up.

The angel, seeing this, forced herself back up, and desperately tried to reach Jin before Kazuya did. She was limping pretty badly and from the looks of it, her wings were badly beaten up too. As she slowly made her way toward Jin, she muttered under her breath, "Not again… I will not… let history… repeat itself. I won't… abandon… another- agh!" The angel screamed in pain as the devil tackled her down to the ground and put a firm grip on her neck, holding her down.

Kazuya, obviously thinking that he had the fight won, let out a short laugh and gave Jin a triumphant sneer. He was about to unleash another laser beam, before something else took his attention. A bunch of floating balls of light surrounded Jin. To Asuka, the floating balls of light looked friendly enough. They were floating around passively around Jin, and by the looks of it (to Asuka), it looked as if they were checking up on Jin, to see if he was alright. After a while of floating around, the balls of light flew towards one another and began circling around a spot next to Jin's battered body. They continued to circle around and around, faster and faster, until finally, inside the circle they were creating, a pillar of light came down from the sky and landed inside of the circle. The impact of the pillar of light hitting the ground created a powerful light that blinded everyone.

When the light finally died down, everyone looked at the spot where the pillar of light had landed, and gasped. Even Asuka, who didn't know the majority of what was going on at the moment, gasped at who was currently kneeling besides Jin's body. She had never seen her in person before, but she did hear a lot of great things about her from her dad, and she had seen a picture of her from some of her father's family albums.

"J-Jun." Asuka said softly. "But why? To protect your son?"

Obviously, no one directly answered her. All Asuka could do at the moment was painfully watch as the events in front of her unfolded.

Jun was kneeling beside her son's body, gently checking to see if he was alright. As she was doing that, Kazuya seemed to have been at a loss at what to do. He just stood there, dumbfounded at what had just happened right in front of him. Meanwhile, the devil was looking at Jun, a giant, toothy grin forming on his horrific face.

"I see!" he said calmly. "So that is what keeps me from taking him over completely. That is the little bit of light that has kept him fighting the darkness up until now!" He let out triumphant laugh, looked at Kazuya, pointed at Jun, and cried, "Kill her! If you do, then you will gain unparalleled power!"

Kazuya grinned, and without any hesitation, fired a laser at Jun. Jun screamed, as the force of the laser pushed her back, away from Jin. Jin, with every ounce of strength that he could muster, tried to follow his mother with his eyes, only to see her groaning in pain and gasping for air as a result from Kazuya's merciless attack. Jin painfully rolled himself over, his stomach against the ground. "Mother…," he said softly, slowly trying, in vain, to reach out to her.

The devil smiled. "Now…" he said to Kazuya, "finish her off!"

"No!" the angel screamed, trying desperately to get out of the devil's grasp. The devil responded by slamming her head hard against the ground.

Asuka couldn't take it anymore. She ran up to Kazuya. "Stop it this instant!" she cried. Like before, Kazuya couldn't hear her, and continued walking towards Jun. Asuka was getting frustrated. "Why you…" she lunged toward him, "listen to me when I'm talking to you!" Just like before, she phased right through him, however, unlike last time, Asuka didn't let that faze her. She ran back up to him and gave Kazuya a barrage of kicks to his face. However, just as Asuka painfully expected, it was all for naught. All of the kicks went right through him, as he slowly walked through and past her. Asuka, however, wasn't about to give up just yet. She continued to go up to Kazuya and attack him in all the different ways she could. She didn't care that it didn't do anything, she didn't care that she was wasting her time, effort, and energy on a vain attempt to change what was happening in front of her, she didn't care that this was all a dream and that she'd probably wake up and be perfectly fine and safe on a ferry. What she couldn't stand, however, was doing absolutely nothing when something like this was happening right in front of her. This wasn't right, she wanted to make things right, and even though she knew nothing she did would work, she at least wanted to feel like she was trying, that she wasn't just standing there letting this happen, being okay with these events happening right in front of her, ACCEPTING something that was one hundred percent wrong.

Eventually, Asuka tired out, and had to stop and catch her breath. By then, Kazuya was ten feet away from Jun, and slowly and confidently closing in. A part of Asuka didn't want to see what was going to happen next, but she forced herself to look anyway. "If I can't even face my own failures, then I shouldn't have even become a fighter in the first place," she told herself.

As Asuka looked on, Kazuya had finally reached Jun, who had barely managed to get back on her feet. Before Jun could fully stand, Kazuya grabbed her neck and lifted her up from the ground with one hand, and proceeded to suck out all the life in her. Little by little, Kazuya's grip on her neck tightened harder and harder, and little by little, Jun was starting to fade more and more. To Asuka, it almost looked like Kazuya was trying to crush her neck in his hand.

Behind her, Jin was looking at the scene in horror. "M-mother?" he asked quietly. With all the breath taken out of her, all Jun could do was look at her son, and give him a warm, but sad smile. Jin's eyes grew wide. "…N-no. …NO!" At that moment, Asuka turned around to find Jin, screaming his head off and surrounded by powerful, dark energy. From the looks of it, he had forced himself to get up despite his injuries, and with extended wings, looked at Kazuya with angry, yellow eyes, and shot himself towards him. However, this only seemed to amuse Kazuya, as he smirked at Jin and, in a blink of an eye, shot Jun with his laser straight in the face, resulting in Jin stopping dead in his tracks in shock. Kazuya continued firing his laser beam at Jun until Jun's body literally lit on fire, and Jun's body noticeably turning blacker and blacker by the second.

Asuka stared at the scene with horror filled eyes and jaw dropped. A part of her again tried to convince her to look away, that it was obvious that Jun was dead and that she didn't have to look anymore, but no, that little pride and stubbornness of hers wouldn't let her, and she forced herself to keep watching.

When Kazuya finally stopped firing his laser, he looked at Jin, grinned, and threw Jun's corpse toward her son. Jin, almost too shocked to move, at the last second caught his mother, but only to see a horrific image in his arms. In his arms was Jun, dead and practically burnt to a crisp, eyes open, staring at her son with eyes that could no longer see, eyes that no longer looked like eyes. "I shouldn't be looking at this," Asuka thought to herself, as she too looked at the body in Jin's hands, "I shouldn't… but… for some reason… I just can't bring myself not to."

For a moment, no one did or said anything. The devil and the angel just stared at Jin, Kazuya simply gave Jin a triumphant smirk, and Asuka and Jin fixed their eyes on Jun's corpse. Then, Jin, slowly moving his left hand again (as his right was supporting Jun's body), asked one more time, "…Mother?" He touched her face gently, only for the body to fall apart in his arms, leaving him with only a large pile of ash in his hands, on his arms, and on the ground in front of him. For a moment, Jin didn't say anything. Asuka slowly looked at Jin's face, trying to read it as best she could, but all she saw was a blank, shocked expression. Slowly however, Jin's face slowly turned from blank and shocked to angry and vengeful, as he slowly looked back up to Kazuya and let out a bloodthirsty scream. He once again spread his wings, and launched himself towards Kazuya, resuming what he had started just moments before. In blind rage, Jin was about to strike, but Kazuya, predicting this outcome, calmly dodged Jin's attack, stepped to the side, and caught Jin by his face. He then used his claws and strength to rip off one of Jin's wings. Jin, shocked at first, began to scream in pain as his wing was being ripped off his back. After a moment of hearing his opponent's scream of pain (and enjoying it way too much if you asked Asuka), Kazuya proceeded to do the same thing with the other wing. More screams of pain were heard from Jin.

After Jin's screams of pain finally subsided, Kazuya began to walk to the volcano's vent, carrying Jin with him, who tried desperately to use the last of his remaining strength to escape from Kazuya's grip on his neck. When Kazuya finally reached the edge of the vent, he looked at Jin for a moment before beating at Jin's head mercilessly until he was sure that Jin could no longer fight back. Then, he lifted Jin's motionless body up over the edge.

Asuka looked on in horror. "He's not going to… drop him, is he?" Asuka thought, "But even if he does, I can't really do anything to stop it anyway, can I?" Asuka looked at the ground for a moment before punching it in frustration. She hated this feeling. This feeling of being completely useless when bad things in front of her happened. Sure, she understood that bad things happened, and sometimes, there was nothing you could really do about it, but to her, she always believed that if there was a will, there was a way, no matter how big or how small, to make things right. But just how was she going to do that now? If she tried to stop Kazuya, then she'd just phase right through him, and probably fall into the volcano right alongside Jin, but if she didn't….

"Wait a minute," Asuka thought. "I might not be able to touch them, but…," she looked at the angel and devil, "maybe I can touch them!" She hadn't made any physical contact with them at all, so who knows? Maybe she can help the angel who can then help Jin!

She took one last look at Kazuya holding Jin up over the vent. "Now or never," Asuka muttered to herself. She got up and ran as fast as she could to the angel who was still pinned down by the devil's hand wrapped around her neck. "Okay now," Asuka thought, getting ready to strike, "let's see if this works!" She lunged her fist towards the devil's face… only for it to phase right through. As Asuka phased right through the two, she fell to her knees in bitter defeat. "No." she thought to herself. "No no no no no!" she thought, punching the ground (and even creating tiny craters in it) for every "no".

In one last desperate attempt, Asuka crawled towards the angel and shouted, "Please, you have to get up! You're seeing this aren't you?!" she pointed at Kazuya and Jin, "What are you waiting for?! He's about to kill him just like he killed Jun!" She looked at the angel, who didn't move at all. She just stared at the two with an expression of sadness and hopelessness. Asuka couldn't believe what she was seeing. "What kind of angel are you?! Why aren't you helping him?!" At this point, Asuka knew that neither the devil nor the angel could hear her, but she didn't care. A part of her just wanted to take out all of the frustration and anger inside of her and just let it all out. "This is just so frustrating!" Asuka thought to herself.

"Why aren't you helping him?" the devil asked the angel, amused and curious. "Are you okay with letting history repeating itself?"

Asuka looked at the devil in shock, and then refocused her attention on the angel once more, waiting impatiently for her answer. The angel sighed sadly, and said quietly, "What is there left to help?"

Asuka shook her head. "No! You're wrong!" She followed the angel's gaze towards Kazuya and Jin. "Jin's declared war against the entire world, ruined countless people's lives, killed so many innocent people, and (from what I can tell on T.V.) is annoying and unreasonable to no end," she looked back at the angel's face, despite the fact that the angel wasn't looking back, with firm resolution and confidence on her face, "but no one deserves to die, no one deserves to be given up on, and no one should have to feel completely alone and stranded! That's why I do what I do!"

She fixed her gaze back at the two men at the edge of the volcano. "The thugs where I live always fight, and I always break it up, because if I don't break it up, they're going to get themselves hurt, or worse, killed! No one stops them, or even attempts to call the police or any other kind of help whatsoever! It's like they don't even care about them anymore, like these fights are minor inconveniences to their everyday lives, but I care! I don't want to see people throwing their lives away over something so incredibly stupid and thoughtless! I want to see people happy… I want to see people smiling and laughing with one another… I want to see peace! But the only way to make peace is to get involved! I need to get physical with them and stop the fights myself, because when I confront them face to face every time they get out of line, when I'm friendly with them whenever I see them do something other than fighting or getting themselves into trouble, when I tell them how proud I am over something as small as not attacking from behind or not saying something behind someone else's back, or heck, even looking at my chest… I think it shows them that they're not alone, that they've got someone that DOES care about them! That deep down… I'm their friend, and I want them to see that I haven't given up on them, and that they shouldn't give up on them either!" She looked down at the ground again. "I don't know. Maybe that's just me justifying my thirst for a good fight, maybe that's just some kind of excuse for my actions, maybe that's strange and I'm totally crazy…but, I think that's pretty nice," she looked back at the angel, a soft and hopeful expression on her face, "don't ya' think?"

Of course, the angel didn't answer her, let alone hear her, and continued to look sadly at the two figures at the edge of the volcano. Asuka, after a long moment of waiting in vain for a response, once again followed the angel and devil's stare on the two. Jin's body was still dangling above the vent only supported by Kazuya's hand on his neck.

As Jin was finally coming to, Kazuya smiled, and said, "Good, you're awake. Now…," he glanced at the molten lava down the volcano before looking back at Jin, "sink into despair, and accept all of the devil's power."

Asuka looked on as Kazuya spread his wings and flew at the center of volcano's vent, and slowly loosened his grip on Jin's neck. He was going to drop him, and there was nothing Asuka could do about it. Jin was too weak from Kazuya's beating, and without his wings, Jin couldn't possibly fly his way out. Jin was either going to fall into the volcano and burn to death or turn into a monster that looked just like Kazuya and the devil. There was nothing Asuka could do about it. Nothing she could do about it. Nothing she could do about it….

"You know what?" Asuka looked down, hiding her eyes with her bangs before looking back up, a look of determination now on her face. "What the heck." Asuka ran towards the two floating at the center of the volcano's opening, screaming her head off like a warrior charging into battle, and jumped. She could jump off tall buildings on a bicycle and punch people through rocks, why the heck not could she jump across a volcano?

Well she did… sort of. She jumped across the vent, predictably (and to her annoyance) phasing through Kazuya and Jin, and continuing to move forward to the other side, however, she didn't make it as far as she would have wanted. She got to the other side and all, but she barely got one hand on the edge of it, and her fingers were quickly slipping. Asuka, a little disoriented from hitting the walls of the vent, quickly tried to pull herself back up, but didn't have enough time. The rock under her fingers broke off from the rest of the edge, and at that point, everything seemed to go in slow motion. Too shocked to scream or think properly, Asuka started to fall. This was it. She was going to die. Even if this all was just a dream, it would still give her one of those odd sensations one has when one dies in a dream, and she always hated those. Closing her eyes, getting ready for the inevitable, she suddenly felt someone tightly grab her wrist. Surprised, she opened her eyes and looked up, wanting to see her rescuer, especially when she wasn't even tangible here.

To her shock, Asuka saw Jun, tightly holding on to Asuka's wrist and giving her a reassuring smile. "Wait, but… Jun's dead," Asuka thought. "Then again, why am I complaining?"

Jun looked out to the center of the volcano, and Asuka followed her lead. A big splash was heard, making it painfully obvious that Jin had fallen into the volcano. For a full minute, nothing happened, until finally, a pillar of magma shot up and revealed, inside it, Jin, looking just as demonic as Kazuya was, letting out a monstrous roar and stretching out his new, more demonic wings.

The devil's laughs could be heard all the way across the volcano. "Yes!" he cried. "Yes!"

The angel simply stared at Jin, tears in her eyes, before finally disappearing as small particles of light, without any trace of her left except a feather from one of her wings.

Asuka felt a tug on her arm. She looked up, seeing that Jun was trying to pull her back up. Helping her out a bit, Asuka was finally back on solid ground and boy did it feel good. She looked at Jun, who was lightly panting beside her from the exertion of pulling her up from an extremely hot volcano.

After waiting a moment for Jun to catch her breath, Asuka, somewhat sheepishly, crawled up to Jun, and was about to ask her the question that had plagued her mind the moment she got here (wherever "here" was), but was interrupted by Jun, who quickly raised her hand up to stop her, and smiled. "I understand that you have a lot of questions," Jun said. As she said this, the environment and people around them slowly disappeared, and the place was just like it was the moment first Asuka got there, black and empty. "Well then," Jun stood up, and reached her hand out to the dumbfounded Asuka who was still on the ground, ushering her to get up, "let's answer some of those questions then, shall we?"

* * *

"Asuka!" Asuka felt a hand grab her shoulder and shake her. "Asuka, wake up!"

"Wha-what?" Asuka asked, groggily. As Asuka finally rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and forced them open, her vision became much more focused.

She saw her mother standing over her, an amused smile on her face. "We're here sleepyhead!" She was starting to get off the ferry, but stopped herself and added, "Did you sleep well?"

Asuka grumbled. "Well… it could have been better."

Her mother turned around, confused, "Hmm?"

Asuka sighed, and waved her mother's confusion off. "Don't worry. The ferry was too rocky, that's all."

"Oh," he mother said, nodding. "Yes, that does make sense." She laughed, and added, "I guess it's a good thing that you're father didn't fall asleep then, huh?"

Asuka laughed. "Yeah. He'd probably get back pains or something!"

"Hey," her father, behind her, said, an annoyed look on his face. "Is that how you treat your father," he turned to his wife, "and your husband? The man whom you love," he turned back to Asuka, "and the person who taught you everything you know about Kazama style martial arts?"

Asuka looked at him with an unimpressed, indifferent look on her face. "You mean the same guy that got completely pummeled by a Chinese martial artist and let him steal our dojo's sign, the same sign that I had to get back all by myself?"

"And the man," Asuka's mom added, folding her arms, looking cross, "that is currently having financial problems and can't even pay the rent and the bills, let alone the repairs for the dojo after that little 'fight' he had with that said 'Chinese martial artist'?"

Asuka's father, taken aback by his mother and daughter's harsh words, stepped back a couple of paces, turned his back to them, and played with his fingers sheepishly before saying gloomily, "You two don't have to rub it in you know." He let out a deep sigh. "Moments like these really ARE depressing," he whispered to himself.

Asuka gave her dad a look of disgust. "Did you forget that this 'moment' isn't supposed to be about you in the first place?"

"Yes dear!" Asuka's mother scolded, placing her hands on her hips in irritation. "Remember, we came here to honor Jun memory!"

Knowing that they were right, but still upset at his present predicament, Asuka's dad nodded sheepishly, and whimpered, "Yes, I remember."

Asuka's mother let out a huff. "Well then, let's get going!" She turned to her husband, arms crossed and asked, "You know where the car rentals are, right?"

Asuka's dad nodded. "Yeah."

Asuka's mother smiled. "Good. We'll walk to the nearest car rental, rest a little, and then rent a car and drive ourselves to the cemetery." Asuka's dad laughed nervously. Her mother looked at him suspiciously, and asked, "Is something wrong honey?"

Her dad laughed nervously again, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. "We're… not going to rent a car, actually."

"WHAT?!" Asuka and her mom shouted.

Asuka's father laughed again. "Well… like you said, we're having some financial troubles right now, so…-"

"That's why we took the four hour ferry, when we could've taken a two hour plane ride!? Asuka cried.

"And that's why," Asuka's mother continued, her anger slowly starting to rise, "we had to drive all the way to Kagoshima port instead of taking the plane ride from Osaka?!"

"Because it was cheaper?!" Asuka and her mother finished in unison.

Asuka's father laughed weakly. "Yeah… that's… about right."

"Dear…," his wife said, rubbing her temples in exasperation.

"Great," Asuka said, flinging her arms up in exaggerated frustration, "now how do you suppose we get to the cemetery then?"

Asuka's father played with his fingers before finally answering, "…On foot?"

Asuka's mother's eyes grew wide. "We're going to walk to Jun's grave on foot," she indicated towards her daughter and husband, "in THESE clothes?"

She had a point. On normal circumstances, Asuka and her mother wouldn't have minded hiking around Yakushima Island. It was a beautiful place after all, filled with rich, green plants, tall, strong, healthy trees, lovely lakes, rivers and waterfalls, gorgeous views, peaceful wildlife, and conveniently made roads and paths to help you admire it all. But the thing was that, today, they weren't here for that. They were here to honor the memory of someone dear to the family, and the proper clothing for doing that wasn't fit for hiking. With Asuka in black flat heeled shoes, black stockings, a short black, funeral dress, and black formal jacket; her mother wearing a long black, funeral dress, black, low-heeled shoes, black stockings, and a long black overcoat; and her father with black shoes, black socks, black dress pants, a black belt, white dress shirt, black tie, and a black, suit jacket, none of them were suited for a long, grueling, dirty walk up the island.

"W-well," Asuka's father stammered, "it would be good… e-exercise."

Asuka rubbed her temples with her right hand, placed her left hand on her hip, and shook her head in disbelief. "Dad…," she groaned.

"Now wait just a minute!" her father protested, "It may sound ridiculous, but trust me Asuka, it will be great training for you!"

"Well what about me?" Asuka's mother cried, pointing at herself angrily, "I'm not a fighter! I could care less about 'training' or 'exercise', especially when I have these on!" She pointed furiously at her heels.

Asuka's father shrugged. "Just take them off!" he answered.

"HONEY!"

"Well, let's get going people! Chop chop!" Asuka's father said quickly, clapping his hands and speed walking down the ferry's ramp and onto the port, not showing any signs of stopping or looking back.

Asuka's mother ran to the ferry's metal railing (as quickly as a woman in heels could run) shook her head, grumbled, regained her composure, fixed her clothes a bit, turned to Asuka, sighed, and gestured for her to go down the ramp first. Asuka looked at her mother in disbelief. "Really mom?! Really?!"

"We're here for Jun, not for you father, but don't worry about him though," her mother said through clenched teeth, "I'm going to have a LONG talk with him when we get back home." She looked at the path where Asuka's father was currently about to tread on. "And believe me, NO amount of training or exercising will get him out of that one." Asuka gulped. Her mother was almost never angry, but she knew that every time she was, she became dangerously scary.

"Nice knowing you dad," Asuka muttered under her breath as she slowly followed her dad's lead up the island.

* * *

"Dad!" Asuka cried, as she walked up the trail going uphill, "You sure this is the right path?!"

Her father, out of breath and trailing behind her, nodded. "Yeah… this should be it." He stopped, panting heavily and groaned, before asking, "Honey… could we stop for a moment… please?"

Asuka turned around to face her father, placing her hands on her hips and raising an eyebrow. "Why?" she smiled mischievously, "You getting tired old man?"

Her father took a moment to catch his breath before finally answering, "Well honey… I'd think anyone would get a little tired if they were hiking up an island while carrying something heavy on their backs."

"Excuse me?!" Asuka's mother cried, slapping the back of her husband's head. Early on in the hike up the island, Asuka's mom had insisted that her husband carry her up the trail, and since then, she had been carried up the island by her husband piggy-back style. "I am NOT heavy! If you ask me, I'd say that you were just too weak! Phft, master of your own dojo, yeah right!"

Asuka's father cringed as he tried to look at his wife. "Explain to me why do I have to do this again?"

Asuka's mother let out a huff. "Because I'm wearing heels and you forced us to walk."

"You wear heels when visiting a grave in the forest on an island?"

"Oh hush. You can walk in heels in a forest, as long as you don't push your luck. I had thought that you'd rent a car for us to ride most of the way, but since you didn't and insisted we go on foot and trek the entire way up, I only had two options left: take them off (and I am not going to walk on the ground with practically no protection for my feet) or find another way to keep from walking too much and risk my heels breaking, and since we're 'financially stranded' the cheapest way to do this is to be carried to Jun's grave, and since you're the one who caused this mess in the first place, I'd figure who better to become part of the solution!"

"Geez," Asuka thought, "she's really going in depth with this, isn't she?" It was sad, but she was starting to become more afraid of her mom then she was of her dad, and HE was the martial arts master!

"Alright, alright, fine!" Asuka's father cried. "Let's keep going," he said, sounding completely defeated.

And they kept going, without any further interruptions, arguments or problems (except if you consider Asuka's dad practically dying under the weight of his wife and the strain of the hike, then yes, there were some problems). Eventually, Asuka, who was ahead of the group, finally came to the start of the steps that lead towards the cemetery's entrance, which was a red, traditional shrine gate. Other than the shrine gate, there was usually almost nothing at the cemetery except tombstones and the graves themselves. Ultimately deciding not to wait for her parents to catch up, Asuka began walking up the steps. When she was high enough to catch a glimpse of the cemetery's ground level, she stopped herself abruptly. Her eyes had caught something that they didn't expect to see, not in a million years. Clasping her hands over her mouth to prevent a noise from coming out of her mouth, all she could do was stare in shock as she saw Jin and Kazuya, glaring at each other and standing in front of Jun's grave. As quickly, and as quietly, as she could, Asuka hid behind the nearest tree next to the current spot on the steps that she was on. Cautiously moving her head out as far as she could without being noticed, Asuka tried to see and hear what the two were doing.

* * *

Despite Jun offering Asuka exactly what she had wanted the moment she entered this miserable place, Asuka didn't immediately respond to Jun's offer. Still a little shaken up over the things she had just seen, and too shocked at what was happening right now, Asuka seemed to have lost her voice. As much as a part of her wanted to speak, wanted to ask the questions she wanted to ask and get them answered, for some reason or another the words just weren't coming out of her mouth. It was as if they were somehow stuck and were clogged up in the middle of her throat. Her mouth just hung down, and stayed down, with her eyes full of curiosity, fear and shock, all at the same time. She just stood there, body frozen in place as she tried again and again to say something.

Jun, understanding that all of this was a bit much for an ordinary high school girl to take in and bounce back from, waited patiently for a while before putting Asuka's hands in hers, caressing them slowly, and said, "Take all the time you need sweetie. Don't force it out."

For some reason, that seemed to do the trick. "What's going on?!" Asuka wailed. Even though she had asked this question several times already, it felt to her like this was the first time she was REALLY asking the question. After all, no one had answered her before (in fact, they downright ignored her completely), and it was after all that time that she was finally going to get an answer to that "million-dollar question". It was a big, fat load off her chest to finally get that first, vague question out of the way.

Jun smiled and simply answered, "This is a dream."

Asuka, obviously not satisfied with her answer, cried, "I know this is a dream, but why is this dream so…" she waved her arms around aimlessly, "specific?! Why am I dreaming about Jin when I don't even like the guy, let alone know him?! Why am I dreaming about people who I don't even know?! Why am I suddenly dreaming about angels and devils fighting each other, each equipped, mind you, with their OWN PERSONAL LASERS!?" Asuka ended the little rant (a little out of breath, because apparently she said all of that without taking any breathers) by looking angrily at Jun, waiting impatiently for her answer.

Jun took a moment to look into her younger sibling's eyes. She saw a fire in those eyes, a fire that had no hope of being extinguished or quenched anytime soon. She knew, simply by looking at those eyes, that Asuka wasn't going to let her off easy. Either she would give her the answers she wanted, answers that would satisfy her, or… that was just it, there was no "or" to it, she was going to have to give her the answers she wanted. Realizing this, Jun, still smiling, let out a small sigh. "Or maybe," she said, "this is a prophecy."

Asuka, a little bit taken aback by her sibling's cryptic response, blinked a few times, before asking, "A… prophecy?"

Jun nodded. "Yes, a prophecy. A prediction of things to come."

"I know what a prophecy is!" Asuka snapped, "It's just…," Asuka's face softened a bit, "why would I, of all people, have a prophecy?"

Jun smiled mysteriously. "Maybe it's because you're connected to everything in the prophecy."

"That's a bit of a stretch don't ya' think? I mean, a lot of people are connected to Jin!"

"Then maybe you're connected to someone who had the ability to have prophecies," Jun simply replied.

"Who?" Asuka asked.

Jun gave her a mysterious smile and pointed at herself. "Me."

A moment of silence was made between the two. "…You?" Asuka asked. Jun nodded. "But… how?"

Jun sighed. "As much as I want to answer all of your questions, we only have time for the more pressing ones." Jun thought for a moment. "How about I help you interpret this prophecy first, and if we have time, I can tell you anything else you want to know."

Asuka hesitated, before finally slowly nodding her head. "Yeah… that seems fair."

Jun smiled. "That's good to hear. Now, let's begin." She turned around and walked away from Asuka a few steps. She then stopped, and, in a Zen-like manner, lifted her arms up, and as she did, spheres of lights circled around her, first slowly, and as time went on they started to move faster and faster, until they shot themselves up into the sky and they all flew in different directions. Asuka watched in nervous anticipation as the lights (that she could see in front of her) slowly reached the ground, and (she assumed) made a big, circular perimeter around them. For a second nothing happened, but suddenly, Jun was enveloped in a pillar of white light, which slowly grew wider and wider inside the circle that Jun's lights had created. As the pillar of light slowly got wider and wider, its brightness became more and more intense, to the point where Asuka had to shut and cover her eyes with her arms to avoid being painfully blinded by it.

She kept her arms over her eyes until Jun gently said, "It's over, you can open your eyes now." As Asuka slowly opened her eyes and lowered her arms, she gasped as she saw that their surroundings had changed, once again, into the volcano, except this time it was obviously peaceful. No one was attacking anyone, and the volcano wasn't a violent mess (at least, it wasn't as violently messy as it could've been).

"Y-you did all of this?" Asuka asked, dumbfounded.

Jun let out a small laugh. "Well, this is still technically a dream after all."

Asuka nodded slowly. "Yeah… I guess that makes sense."

Jun gave her a small nod, before looking serious and saying, "Now… let's start with these two."

Two groups of lights encircled the space beside Jun's left and right sides. Again, it started off slowly, but as they gained speed, they started to blur, which made it look like there were rings of light besides Jun. As they were quickly encircling the space, they had also started moving up and down, slowly at first, but then quickly, until they made the illusion of being tall cylinders of light besides Jun. The "cylinders" stayed there for a few seconds until finally the tops of the cylinders slowly went down and, just like a magician uncovering his newly dressed assistant in a quick-change magic trick, the two cylinders slowly revealed the angel on Jun's left side, and the devil on her right.

"Ah!" Asuka cried, jumping back in surprise.

"Don't worry," Jun reassured her, "they're just images. Think of it as…," Jun thought for a moment, "a presentation with a visual aid."

Asuka gave Jun a suspicious look before slowly walking up to the devil and giving _him_ a suspicious look (right in front of his face, mind you), and quickly walking up to the angel and repeating the process. After a full minute of neither doing nothing to her, Jun, or each other, Asuka nodded slowly and, without taking her eyes off the two (looking at them back to back), she slowly walked back up to Jun, folded her arms, and nodded her approval. "Yep. As far as I know, they're images all right."

Jun tried to repress a small laugh. Some called HER somewhat strange and mysterious, but from what she had just witnessed, it appeared that being somewhat strange and mysterious ran in the Kazama family. "Good, then we can finally start. First, let's start with this one," Jun indicated towards the angel on her left. "This is Angel."

"I know what an angel looks like, but what's her name?"

Jun smiled. "Her name IS Angel."

Asuka gave Jun a look of annoyance. "…What?"

"The angel's name IS Angel," Jun repeated.

Asuka, arms still folded, raised an eyebrow, and asked, "Really?"

Jun cleared her throat due to Asuka unexpectedly putting her in a tough and awkward spot. "Well… it's either her name is Angel or it's what we call her until we find out her real name."

"'We'?" Asuka placed her hands on her hips. "'We' who?"

Jun was now nervously playing with the scarf around her neck. "That's… not really important."

Asuka, admitting that she was kind of right, sighed, but smiled. "All right," she said in a sing-song voice, "but if you ask me, that's still PRETTY lame."

"Can I go on?"

Asuka gave her a mock gesture to continue. "You may."

Jun, somewhat taken aback by her sibling's current behavior towards her, took a moment to regain her composure, and continued with her explanation. "Well, once you think about it, Angel isn't really an individual per say. She's more of a… symbol."

Asuka nodded understandingly. "A symbol… of our good side?"

Jun nodded. "Yes."

Asuka casually pointed at the devil. "And he's… um…," she looked at Jun, "what's his name?"

Jun looked at the devil nervously, before finally answering, "Devil."

Asuka's jaw dropped. "Seriously?"

Jun, her eyes closed, shook her head and waved the question away. "Just… go with it."

Asuka shrugged. "Alright then. It's just that… this is getting kinda corny, you know?"

"JUST GO WITH IT," Jun said firmly. Honestly, how was it that she was having so much more trouble talking with this girl then she ever did with Kazuya and Jin?

Asuka raised her hands up defensively. "Alright, alright." She pointed at Devil again. "So he represents our bad side?"

Jun's face suddenly looked a little sad. "It's actually… a bit more complicated than that."

"But if Angel represents our good sides, then there must be something that represents our bad sides, right? And a devil, or Devil, looks about right for the job."

"Well," Jun said, "there SHOULD be a representative to the dark side of people's hearts, but if there is then I haven't seen one yet. As for Devil," she looked firmly at the image of him next to her, "he… is an entity all on his own."

Asuka took a moment to process what she had just heard. "Wait… are you saying that -"

Jun nodded solemnly. "Yes. Devil DOES physically exist."

"So then… wait. So are you saying that Devil exists, but Angel… technically doesn't?"

"Well… in a way, Angel does exist, inside all of us." She saw a confused look on Asuka's face. "Devil has the power to possess and corrupt people's souls," Jun explained. "He can draw out the 'dark side' of people and use their bodies as he sees fit to use them. And then we have Angel, who represents our good side, who has the power to -"

"Fight off Devil's influence and purify their souls?" Asuka finished.

Jun smiled. "You've got it."

"Yeah, well, it's kind of an easy equation to figure out." Asuka placed her right hand over the place where her "heart" would be. "So even though Devil is an actual living thing, whenever he tries to corrupt our souls, our good side… or rather, Angel," she looked at the image of Angel with a warm smile, "is always there to fight for our souls, because no matter how bad someone is, they always have a little bit of good inside of them." Asuka let out a little laugh and scratched her head. "Geez… this really is getting corny."

Jun smiled. "Yes, but it's a good kind of corny, isn't it?"

Asuka folded her arms and looked at Jun. "Can't argue with that, can I?"

The two of them laughed for a moment, before Asuka regained her focus and asked, "But… what do they have to do with all of this?" Asuka had a pretty good idea of what it was, but she really wanted to get the answer straight from the horse's mouth.

Jun looked down for a moment before letting out a heavy sigh and answering, "These two are constantly fighting in Jin," an image of Jin was projected next to Angel, "and used to fight in Kazuya," and an image of Kazuya appeared next to Devil.

After a moment of silence from Jun, Asuka softly asked, "What do you mean by 'used to fight in Kazuya'?"

After another moment of silence, Jun said, "Kazuya's full name… is Kazuya Mishima."

"Mishima?! Like the Mishima Financial Group?!"

"Yes," Jun said.

"Then… shouldn't he be running the corporation now? Because last time I checked, Jin was the leader of the Mishima Financial Group, not Kazuya."

"Well… you know that there have been numerous King of the Iron Fist Tournaments, right?" Asuka nodded. "Well, between the fourth and fifth tournament, Heihachi Mishima, the Mishima Financial Group's previous successor and Kazuya's father, and Kazuya were attacked by Jack-4 robots -"

"Jack-4's?! How many Jack robots are there?!"

Jun thought for a moment. "I think about… eight." Jun looked at Asuka, a bit surprised. "You know about the Jack robots?"

"I think I've fought at least…," Asuka thought for a moment, "two of them."

Jun nodded. "As I was saying," she said, going back to the discussion at hand, "the Jack-4 robots were sent by someone to kill Kazuya and Heihachi, but failed. Kazuya fled from the attack, and despite using their self-destruct program against Heihachi, he survived the blast. Though he survived, the Mishima Financial Group presumed that he was dead -"

"Well duh."

"And so they attempted to find a new leader for the conglomerate. That new leader would later be Jinpachi Mishima, Heihachi's father."

"Wait a sec," Asuka eyed Kazuya's projection and stared at it, deep in thought. "Kazuya already looks kinda old, and Heihachi is his father, so that must mean that Heihachi's _really _old-looking, like an old man or something, so since Jinpachi is Heihachi's father, then that must mean that Jinpachi's older than the average grandpa."

Jun calmly nodded. "Yes."

"And he's still alive?!"

"Well, Heihachi locked Jinpachi beneath Hon-maru, which is a sacred place underneath a Mishima compound, and eventually Jinpachi died of starvation, but between the events of the fourth and fifth tournament, he was resurrected by a vengeful spirit, and escaped Hon-maru, and became the new leader of the Mishima Financial Group (as Heihachi was thought to be dead) in order to organize the fifth King of the Iron Fist Tournament, hoping that he can find someone strong enough who can free him from the evil spirit before it took complete control over him."

"And that's where Jin comes in."

Jun nodded. "Yes. Jin defeated Jinpachi and freed him from his torment, and with their newest leader gone, Jin became the new leader of the Mishima conglomerate."

"And used it to turn the world upside-down," Asuka muttered.

"Yes. I can't deny that he made some… questionable decisions during his reign."

"'Questionable decisions'?! He literally waged war against the WORLD!"

"He was only doing what he thought was best for the world."

"How is waging war against the world even remotely close to doing what's best for it?!"

Jun, taking a deep breath, explained, "Jin started the war in order to collect all the negative energy he could to free a demon known as Azazel from its seal and destroy it by using his Devil Gene's power."

"Okay fine, but why did he have to do that in the first place?! Azazel was sealed right? He wouldn't have been able to do anything at all if Jin hadn't done all the things that he did!"

"Jin wanted to save the world," Jun answered calmly.

"From something that wouldn't have been able to destroy it if Jin hadn't WAGED WAR ON THE ENTIRE FREAKIN' WORLD!"

"He wanted to save the world… from the Devil Gene."

"And that's another thing!" Asuka cried, pointing an accusing finger at Jun. "What the heck is this 'Devil Gene'?"

Both became quiet. Despite the fact that Jun took her sweet time answering, Asuka waited patiently (albeit angrily) for her answer. Finally, Jun took a deep breath and created images of Jinpachi (next to Jin) and Heihachi (next to Kazuya).

"Why didn't she do that before?" Asuka thought, obviously a little annoyed.

Jun looked at Asuka and said, "When Kazuya was little, his father, Heihachi, treated him harshly, and after he stole Jinpachi's conglomerate from him, he locked him up under Hon-maru and he…," Jun paused for a moment, obviously a little uneasy about what she was about to say, and continued in a disgusted tone of voice, "threw his son over a deep ravine."

Asuka's eyes grew wide. "No way," she said softly.

Jun nodded. "It happened." She took a deep breath and continued. "After being thrown down the ravine, Devil approached Kazuya and offered him the power he needed to overthrow his father in exchange for his soul. That… is the Devil Gene. Kazuya accepted, and he climbed out of the ravine, and defeated his father in the very first King of the Iron Fist Tournament, and got his revenge by throwing Heihachi off the same ravine that his father threw him off of. He later took control of his family's conglomerate, but now that Devil was inside his soul he did terrible things during his reign over the conglomerate. It was because of one of his acts of treachery that I was sent by the WWWC to arrest him, but when I got close to him, I could feel Devil's presence inside of him, and so I chose from then on to try and free Kazuya from his influence in the second King of the Iron Fist Tournament. Eventually, one thing lead to another, and…," Jun blushed a little, "I'd like to think that we… fell in love."

Asuka's eyes grew wide again. "You and," she looked at Kazuya and cringed, "him?!"

Jun averted her eyes out of embarrassment. "Please don't judge me."

"O-okay then."

Jun took a moment to regain her composure and continued her explanation. "During that tournament, Kazuya encountered Heihachi again, but this time, Heihachi got the better of him and was able to defeat him, forcing Devil to completely take over Kazuya's body in hopes of defeating Heihachi, but was defeated as well. Defeated, half of Devil's spirit fled from Kazuya's body, and Heihachi, not wanting Devil's power to be used against him again, threw Kazuya and the remaining part of Devil's spirit into a volcano -"

"Similar to this one," Asuka finished, pointing at the ground.

Jun nodded. "Correct. But Kazuya didn't die. His body was retrieved by the biotech firm, G-Corporation, which brought him back to life and agreed to help him investigate the Devil Gene within him, which he plans to use at its full potential and aspires to take full control of, in hopes of defeating his father once and for all and taking over the world."

Jun paused for a moment before continuing. "Eventually, one thing led to another, and Heihachi led Kazuya into Hon-maru, where Heihachi was planning to use the Devil Gene to become immortal. Sensing his other half inside the temple, Devil quickly took over Kazuya's body and defeated Heihachi, so that he can reunite with the missing half and become whole again. He found the other half of his spirit inside Kazuya's son, Jin, who was captured by Heihachi earlier in order to lure Kazuya inside the temple."

"Wait wait wait wait wait," Asuka said quickly. "Jin is Kazuya's son?"

Jun nodded. "Yes."

"But… Jin doesn't share Kazuya's surname."

Jun blushed a little bit. "I know."

Asuka eyed Jun suspiciously. "And I thought Jin was YOUR son."

Jun averted her eyes from Asuka's gaze. "That is correct."

"And you did say you and Kazuya were in love with each other," Asuka said slowly. "So that means…." Asuka's eyes grew wide both due to shock and realization. "Oh my gosh! You mean you guys -"

"Yes," Jun said softly.

"Agh!" Asuka cried, scratching her head wildly, horrified. "H-how could you?!"

"Please don't judge me," Jun said again.

"After my dad told me all about you, I looked up to you, and now I find out that you did…," Asuka did some crazy hand gestures, "this!" Asuka had a disgusted look on her face. "I'll probably never be able to look at you the same way again," she muttered.

"Can we please just move on?" Jun asked, obviously uncomfortable about the sudden change in topic.

Asuka put her hands together in the form of what looked like a praying position and shook her head gravely. "We can try, but I know I can't."

Jun sighed. "Well, when a part of Devil's spirit left Kazuya's body, it tried to find a new soul to reside in, and found a host in our unborn son, Jin. I had succeeded in driving him back the first time he targeted Jin, but after I was killed by the evil alien entity called Ogre, Devil's spirit took it as an opportunity to possess him while he was unconscious from Ogre's attack. However, because of my moral teachings, Angel has kept Devil's grip on Jin from being as powerful as his grip has been on Kazuya, but that doesn't change the fact that Devil still resides within Jin's soul. Eventually, Jin found a way to control the Devil Gene and Devil's power, and has been able to use it whenever he needed it ever since, however, instead Jin thinks of the Devil Gene as a curse originating from the Mishima bloodline and that the Devil Gene would eventually take control of him and make him wreck havoc on the world."

"Well the family IS kind of messed up, and the Mishimas are the only other people with the Devil Gene, and he DOES look like a devil when he uses it, so I can't really blame him for putting it all together like that."

Jun nodded. "Devil tried to absorb his other half, but for one reason or another, couldn't do it. Before Devil could do anything else, however, Kazuya forced Devil to merge with him into one being (because as you already know, Kazuya wished to gain complete control over Devil's power), and Kazuya and Jin fought. Jin came out the victor, and at first tried to kill Kazuya and Heihachi, but thankfully, he just couldn't bring himself to do it. Then he successfully defeated and destroyed Jinpachi from his evil state, gaining leadership of the Mishima Financial Group, and used the conglomerate's power to release Azazel, so that he could use the Devil Gene's power to destroy both Azazel and his Devil Gene, but it didn't work. He is still cursed by Devil."

Asuka took a moment to absorb all that she had heard. "If you ask me, that's still not a good enough reason to do what he did. Besides, even if it did work, Kazuya would still have his Devil Gene, wouldn't he?"

Jun nodded. "Yes, that is true, and I agree with you on your opinion about what Jin did, but you must admit, it was a valiant effort nonetheless."

Asuka shrugged. "If you want to think of it that way, then fine, more power to you." Asuka considered about asking Jun who Ogre was, but decided against it, since Ogre wasn't part of the "prophecy" and that, in the big scheme of things, probably didn't matter at the moment. After a long silence, Asuka asked quietly, "So what does this whole prophecy mean? And why am I seeing this?"

Jun looked at the opening of the volcano that they were standing on and said, "When Kazuya was thrown off of a volcano, he was brought to life by G-Corporation, and he struck a deal with them. Kazuya would let G-Corporation do tests on the Devil Gene, as long as Kazuya had access to the information that they acquired. Kazuya is obsessed with learning everything there is to know about the Devil Gene, because he wants to have full control of Devil's powers in order to defeat Heihachi and take over the world. He also wants Jin's Devil Gene, in order to merge it with his and increase his power. You can say that Devil has completely destroyed all the good in Kazuya, and that Kazuya even likes his dark side, creating a monster of a man in the process."

Jun looked back at Asuka. "I fear that this prophecy foretells that Jin is close to sharing that same fate." Asuka's eyes grew wide. It was obvious to her now why Jun had said that Angel and Devil used to fight in Kazuya. Angel had been completely wiped out from Kazuya's heart. "The prophecy tells us that if something doesn't change now, whatever left of Jin's good side that Angel is protecting will be taken over by Devil, and that my son will turn into the same heartless monster that Kazuya is today."

* * *

The two kept glaring at each other, and Asuka kept her eyes on them. Nothing. That's all they did for what seemed like an eternity. Well, okay, it wasn't an eternity, but it was long enough that Asuka's parents, who were so behind that Asuka had to consider waiting for them to let them catch up or not, had finally caught up to her. Thankfully, Asuka had heard her father's heavy footsteps and small whimpers (he was still carrying Asuka's mother) and had run down to them, quickly warned them to be quiet and told them to follow her as quietly as they could. Once they had followed Asuka to her chosen hiding place, Asuka pointed towards the cemetery and silently indicated for them to look up at the higher level of land.

The moment Asuka's parents saw what Asuka was trying to warn them about, she saw that her parents were about to burst out with some kind of exclamation and quickly (from behind) put her hands over their mouths and forced them to crouch down as low as they could.

When it was obvious that her parents wanted to speak (as Asuka's mother was frantically tapping on her hand over her mouth, and her father trying to pry her hand off his), Asuka made them promise not to make any outbursts and that whatever they were about to say, they had better say it as quietly as they could. They nodded, and she slowly uncovered her hands from their mouths.

The moment she did that, Asuka's parents, as quickly as they could, wobbled and turned themselves around to face their daughter, their faces ominous and distraught. "Honey," Asuka's mother asked, facing her husband, "why is Jin here?"

Asuka's father shook his head gravely. "I don't know." He tried to stretch his neck high enough so that he catch a glimpse of Jun's son. "The last time I saw him, he was on T.V., declaring war against the entire world."

Asuka's mother thought frantically, before asking, "Do you think he's here to visit his mother?"

Asuka's father let out a heavy sigh. "I wish I could believe that," he shook his head, "but based on his most recent actions alone, I'd be surprised if he even remembered who his mother was. I couldn't believe it when I saw him on T.V., acting the way he did. Jun would have never raised a son that would do something like that. It's just not possible!"

Asuka's mom nodded understandingly, stretched out her neck to look at the two again, and asked, "And who's that with him?"

Her husband tried to look at who she was talking about. When he spotted him, he shook his head. "I don't know."

"Well whoever it is, he's doesn't look friendly."

"No," Asuka's father shook his head. "No he does not."

Asuka lightly tapped their shoulders, and signed that she wanted to talk to them. Once they had turned around, Asuka whispered, "Whatever the reason, it's too dangerous to stay here." She looked solemnly at her father. "Dad, take mom and go down the way we came. I'll stay here and make sure they stay where they are and meet you back at the ferry."

Her father shook his head, placed his hands firmly on her shoulders and said, "Young lady, I let you do a lot of crazy things, but this is where I put my foot down! I will not leave my little girl alone with a tyrant and a… a…," he took one last quick look at Kazuya, "ruffian!" He shook his head. "No. You take your mother down the way we came, and I'll stay."

Asuka forced her father's hands off of her shoulders. "Dad!"

"Don't you 'Dad!' me! I couldn't live with myself if something happened to my daughter while I was running away! Besides," her dad tried to put up a confident, heroic smile, but it only ended up looking sad and uncertain, "a man needs to protect his family, right?"

"Even when it doesn't make any sense?!" Asuka countered. "Dad, I have a better chance at fighting them off if they catch me then you do! Look at you! You're sweating like a pig and panting like a dog! You don't have the energy to fight them off if you have to, or at the very least run! Dad," her parents were surprised at the sudden look of concern appearing across their daughter's face, "I wouldn't be able to live with myself if something happened to you when I know dang well that I was the better choice!"

A moment of silence was spent between the three. Asuka's dad shook his head slowly. "Asuka, please."

"Dad, please!"

"Both of you stop, please," Asuka's mother said gently. She grabbed Asuka's left hand and her husband's right hand and squeezed them tightly. "You've both made it very clear that neither one of you are going anywhere, and I couldn't live with myself if I left you two to save my own skin." She smiled endearingly at them. "So I guess that means that whatever happens to us, we'll go through it together, as a family."

Asuka and her dad stared at her in shock before looking at each other and smiling. Asuka's father placed his other hand over his wife's and asked, "Have I ever told you how brave and how strong you are?"

Asuka's mother gave a light blush and brushed a strand of her hair to the side. "No, I've never heard those adjectives and my name in the same sentence coming out of your mouth before."

"Then let me say it now." He kissed her hand. "You are so brave and so strong. You make the Kazama name proud." He turned to Asuka. "Honey, whatever woman you turn out to be, promise me that you'll be just as brave and as strong as your dear old mother right here."

Asuka's mother blushed a little harder. "And if you ever find a husband," she added, "make sure he's strong enough to at least carry you around without sweating all over the place." The two laughed at her little joke and Asuka smiled at the scene before her.

"If this isn't what a family is," Asuka thought to herself, "then I don't know what is." Sure, they had their quirks and arguments, but that was always part of the deal wasn't it? No family was perfect, but families had to at least try to get pretty close, you know? She looked up at the scene above them. Speaking of families….

She placed a hand on both of her parents' shoulders, looking serious again. "Okay then." She looked at her father. "Dad, I'm gonna try and go up and see what they're doing. You and mom get to lower ground and hide. Don't worry, I'm not asking you to go too far, just close enough to see me and far enough that, if I make a run for it, you'll have a little bit of a head start." After seeing a look of concern on her dad's face, Asuka gently smiled, and added, "I run pretty fast dad, I'll catch up, I promise."

Asuka's dad still seemed to be on the fence about this. "I don't know," he said slowly.

"Honey," Asuka's mother said, "maybe we should give this a try. We're not as young as we used to be, so running away from dangerous men isn't something we can take lightly. Asuka has time on her side, so she's the best choice out of all of us to take away a head start from, and she understands the danger of the situation, so you know she'll be careful not to be spotted. Maybe after a while they'll just leave, so when they do Asuka can give us the all clear and (after a little bit of waiting and double checking of course) we'll go and do what we came here to do, which is to honor Jun's memory. And we'll be close enough to see right? So that means that if something happens to her, we can run up as fast as we can and be by her side."

After letting out a heavy sigh, Asuka's father finally said (though still somewhat reluctantly), "Alright then." He placed a hand on Asuka's shoulder and squeezed it firmly. "But please be careful."

Asuka gently removed her father's hand off her. "Don't I always?" she asked quietly.

Her parents both smiled, and slowly wobbled their way to lower ground. Asuka waited for them to find a suitable hiding place, and when they did, Asuka's father gave her the thumbs up, signaling that they had found the perfect hiding place that fit the guidelines to their plan and that it was alright for her to get going now.

Asuka nodded to her father, signaling back that she had seen his signal, and, as carefully as she could, tried to make her way closer to the two devils at the cemetery. She quickly moved from tree to tree, careful not to make any noise of any kind. Finally, she decided to stay two trees away from them (she had considered going the extra tree, but decided against it, thinking that that was probably pushing her luck). Situating herself so that she wouldn't be spotted so easily, Asuka peered as far as she thought was safely possible and looked attentively at the two figures still standing in front of Jun's grave.

"Geez, they're still just standing there?" Asuka thought, "And we had a whole conversation down there too!"

More standing around. Asuka looked them over to see if there had been any action they had missed while she and her parents were talking. Surprisingly enough, no changes could be seen, they were just as neat and tidy as the last time she closely looked at them. Basing her judgment on her prophecy alone, she had expected that the two would've at least put a little dust on each others' clothes by now.

Kazuya finally decided to break the silence. With folded arms and an unimpressed look on his face, Kazuya asked, "Why are you here… boy?"

When Jin didn't answer, Kazuya smirked, and asked, "Visiting my lover's grave… are you?"

Kazuya had obviously hit a nerve. "Don't you dare call her that!" Jin growled, his glare growing a bit angrier.

Kazuya's face looked serious again. "Then answer my question."

Jin glanced at his mother's grave for a second before glaring back at Kazuya and saying, "It doesn't concern you."

Kazuya looked more unimpressed then before. "Tch."

A brief moment of silence, before Jin asked, "May I ask why you're here?"

Kazuya's face didn't change. "It doesn't concern you."

"Geez, like father like son," Asuka thought, rolling her eyes at the conversation in front of her. "Let's just hope they aren't alike in more ways than one," she thought, and regained serious focus on the two.

Kazuya let out a small laugh. "Well, whatever the reason we had for coming here, it would appear that the presence of another person renders this visit useless." He waited for Jin to say something before he added, "Then let's give ourselves a new reason." His red eye flashed brightly, a dangerous smile appearing on his face. "Let's settle this."

Jin stayed completely calm and composed, the words having little to no affect on him. "Hm?"

Kazuya smirked. "You know what I mean," he said. "Up until now, we've never been able to see who was the better devil, but now, with the two of us here and with nothing in our way, I think it's about time we find out once and for all," he cracked his knuckles, "who gets the other half of the Devil's power."

Jin barely reacted to his father's blunt, bloodthirsty words. "And why do you think I'd want the rest of the Devil Gene?"

Kazuya continued to smiled and shrugged. "Who knows?" he said. "Knowing you," he said, pointing an accusing finger at Jin, "you'd probably want to obtain all of it simply to destroy all of it." He waited for a moment to see if Jin would deny his claim. When Jin didn't say anything, Kazuya smirked, and said, "Oh? What? Did I figure out your little plan?"

Jin didn't say anything for a long time. Both Kazuya and Asuka waited for his reply, and were shocked (Asuka a little bit more than Kazuya) when Jin gave Kazuya a hate filled, bloodthirsty glare. "You can believe what you want to believe," Jin said, "but honestly, I'm starting to wonder…," his voice trailed off.

Kazuya, finding this somewhat amusing, asked, "Starting to wonder what?"

Jin clenched his fists. "I'm starting to wonder why I didn't finish the two of you off the first chance I got."

Kazuya smirked. "It's because you're weak. If you want something done, you need to be ruthless. Sadly, your mother never taught you that." He smiled. "But since you're my son," he cracked his knuckles again, "it looks like that burden falls on me."

"You underestimate me… father." He added some more hate to the "father" part. "I've actually considered the idea of taking away your Devil Gene and using it to end the Mishimas, and end the curse of the Mishima bloodline. After all, I'm convinced that, as long as this family exists, the Devil Gene and misfortune will exist alongside it."

Kazuya couldn't help but let out a chuckle at his son's words. "Well what do you know? I HAVE taught you something after all these years."

"Hmph! If you ask me, you're still going a little bit too soft on him! You should have whipped him into shape the same way I whipped you into shape!" an old, loud, proud voice said.

Asuka was taken aback by the sudden outburst, especially when she didn't recognize the voice, but Jin and Kazuya didn't seem too surprised by it, in fact, Kazuya looked downright annoyed by it. Without even turning his head towards the owner of the voice, Kazuya shouted, "Come out and show your sorry face old man!"

The voice laughed, and Asuka gasped as she saw Heihachi, arms crossed, laughing like he hadn't have a care in the world. When Heihachi finally stopped laughing, he looked arrogantly at his son. "I'm proud of you son! Looks like you finally did something right! You've taught your son an important lesson, a very important lesson indeed!"

Kazuya looked unamused. "Cut the act."

Heihachi looked the opposite of Kazuya. "What act?" he asked.

Kazuya looked like he wanted to pull Heihachi's head off of his shoulders. "You being 'proud of me'. Since when have you ever been proud of me?"

Heihachi waved the remark away. "Oh, come on! Yeah, sure, you started off pretty weak, but in the end, you turned out alright! Cold, ruthless, vengeful… like me!"

"Don't remind me," Kazuya muttered. Apparently he didn't like the thought of being like his old man, especially when he hated the said 'old man'.

"I had a little bit of respect for the two of you creep in when you two took the company away from me!" Heihachi continued. "You made yourselves strong and took away something that you wanted from a more powerful man, and used it the way you saw fit!" Heihachi nodded, before adding, "There's just one important lesson that neither of you have learned yet!"

"Oh?" Kazuya asked, ultimately deciding to humor his father, "and what's that?"

Heihachi's smile suddenly disappeared, and he growled, "Don't take anything… from ME." He smiled again, and cried, "Isn't that right… Kuma?!"

Asuka heard a growl come from Jin's direction, and saw that a large grizzly bear wearing a red bandana around his neck had swiftly gotten behind Jin and was about to attack him from behind, when suddenly, a blonde woman in a purple catsuit jumped from her hiding place and landed a heavy kick across the bear's face, forcing the bear away from Jin, who hadn't even flinched from all the action around him.

The woman positioned herself in front of Jin, and coolly said, "Sorry… but I can't let you do that big guy."

While Heihachi and Kuma gawked at the woman who had thwarted their sneak attack, Kazuya smirked and cried, "Hmph. How shrewd of you. Bringing one of your bodyguards with you to a place like this."

"Jin," the woman asked, not taking her eyes off of the three, "what do you want me to do?"

"Stand down Nina," Jin said, "I'll take care of the rest."

Heihachi took a moment to regain his composure, and shouted, "Well what are you waiting for Kuma?! Do something!"

Kuma looked around frantically and finally spotted Kazuya. He pointed at Kazuya and growled (and surprisingly enough, Asuka somehow understood it now), "Okay then! If I can't get Jin, I'll just get you!"

Getting on all fours, Kuma charged wildly at Kazuya… only to have another woman with short, brown hair in a red dress jump from a hiding place of her own and land on Kuma's head, abruptly stopping his attack.

"Oh!" the woman in the red dress crooned, rolling Kuma over and placing one of her feet firmly on top of Kuma's chest, like a gladiator who had conquered his opponent, "I've always wanted my own life-sized teddy bear!" She took a sniff at Kuma and playfully pinched her nose with her fingers. "But I never wanted one that smelled so much like fish!" She let out a little laugh.

Kuma fought his way from under the woman and scampered his way to Heihachi's side, and growled, "Well what did you expect, huh?"

The woman smiled flirtatiously at the bear and gave it a little wave, before turning around and facing Nina and giving her a wave. "Hey there sis!" she gushed. "Who would have thought that we'd meet here, am I right?" Asuka felt like throwing up. What this woman was doing was something she could never fully digest well, but for now, she would have to make due and try to hold it in.

Nina took the woman's words surprisingly well though. "Hey there Anna," she said, her voice totally indifferent to her sister's little act. She moved her head a little bit to the side to talk to Jin. "'I'll take care of the rest', huh? If you ask me, this little problem you have here just escalated a little bit."

"Fine then," Jin said, "take care of Kuma and your sister." He glared at his relatives. "My family is my problem."

"Got it."

"Oh?" Heihachi asked, raising an eyebrow in amusement, "We're finally getting serious now?"

"Yes," Jin said. He looked at Kazuya. "I'm going to take away your Devil Gene, and all the power that comes with it," he looked at Heihachi, "and I'll use that power to put an end to both of you! This world… is better off without either of you! I'll dispose you both, and all those who are just like you, people who keep us from achieving the dream of a peaceful world! Then, I'll use the company's power to correct all the wrongs you both committed, and once the world has finally found peace, I'll use my power as the head of one of the most powerful conglomerates in the world to find a way to dispose of the Devil Gene! Then," he glanced at his mother's grave, "her dream, no, our dream, will be realized!"

Asuka's eyes grew wide in a mixture of fear and disbelief. "It's worse than we thought, Jun," Asuka thought to herself. "Devil's found a way to convince Jin to use his power willingly!"

"I won't let you do that!" a voice cried. Unlike the reaction given to Heihachi's voice, everyone looked genuinely surprised by this one.

A figure stepped out of the shadows, and upon seeing that figure, everyone's jaw dropped.

"Jinapachi Mishima!" Asuka screamed in her head.

"Grandfather?!" Kazuya cried.

"Why is he here?! Or… how is he here?!" Anna cried.

Jin and Nina didn't say anything, but their eyes did grow wide at the sight of the dead former head of the Mishima Financial Company. Jin especially, considering the fact that he killed him.

Kuma looked wildly between Jinpachi and Heihachi and growled, "What's going on here?!"

Heihachi glared at his father, seething with rage. "Back from the depths of Hell, are you?" he cried.

Jinpachi looked at his son with restrained rage. "Heihachi," he said, "you will pay for this outrage! The Mishima Financial Group used to be a well respected and honorable name in the business world, and although I admit I acted like a business man like all heads of companies do, I also had strong business morals! I would've never done the things you've done! But look at what you've done! You've tarnished the once honorable and respected Mishima name, and have turned it into a name that people despise, fear, and hate! You've created your own soldiers but instead of using them solely to help people, you used them to help people only to benefit yourself and your interests!" He looked at Kazuya. "And look at what you've done to your own son! My poor… poor grandson!" he wailed. "You used to be so kind Kazuya! So frail, yet so kind! And although I'm proud of you for mastering the art of Mishima karate… I would rather you be the kind, frail boy you used to be than this… this… devil! When you took over the company, you did all of the things my foolish son did, but worse! You killed people, extorted money from businesses and companies, and experimented on innocent animals!" Jinpachi took a moment to breath. "When I look at you, I try to see the boy I once loved and cherished with all my heart," he said sadly, "but I can't see that boy anymore." He looked at Jin. "And you!" he said sadly. "My son's corruption to his son has spread to my great-grandson!" He looked at Jun's grave. "You may have been raised by a benevolent woman and despise the Mishimas that have wronged you, as I do," he looked at Jin again, "but my grandson's influence on you is apparent! You've created a war for your own purposes, and ruined the lives of many!"

"No offense sir," Nina interrupted calmly. "But with all due respect, Jin did that in order to destroy Azazel and the Devil Gene."

Jinpachi raised an eyebrow, "And did it work?"

Jin looked bitterly at the ground. "I destroyed Azazel, but not the Devil Gene."

Jinpachi shook his head. "Then you've failed. You've ruined people's lives for nothing."

"That's not true," Jin said. "Freeing Azazel required a surplus amount of negative energy," Jin explained, "and once Azazel was destroyed, everything that helped create all that negative energy to free him was set right. All those who died to contribute to that negative energy were brought back to life."

"But that didn't happen," another voice said from the shadows. Everyone turned to see a man with sandy, spiked, brown hair wearing a red and black armored suit and a cape, and a girl with pink hair wearing a purple outfit, who was all smiles.

Nina was the first to speak when the two revealed themselves. "Oh goodie, Lars and Alisa have joined the party. Great."

Jin seemed to ignore her. "What do you mean 'But that didn't happen'?"

Lars looked at Jin, his face showing a twinge of sadness. "You said that once you defeated Azazel, it would revive all the people that were victims of the war, but that didn't happen." Lars took a deep breath to recompose himself after declaring the bad news, and explained, "The legend talked about 'Two Evil Stars' and how their war against each other would free Azazel, but that's just it, only those involved in the actual war were revived." Jin gasped, and Lars continued. "People like my lieutenant, Tougou, the Tekken Force troops and the G-Corporation troops were revived because they had participated in the war between the 'Two Evil Stars', but all those attacks on innocent people," Lars shook his head, "those casualties didn't fix themselves."

Jin didn't say anything for a moment, due to his shock, and asked, "How do you know that?"

Alisa looked at Jin, and answered, "Raven informed us. He said," she tried to mimic Raven's tone of voice and mannerisms, "'You know how Jin told you everything would fix itself after he did what he had to do? Well, I'm looking at all the casualties, and I don't see anybody coming back to life and all. Just thought you'd like to know.'"

Lars looked nervously at Alisa. "Alisa," Lars whispered, "I don't think Raven wanted us to mention the fact that _he_ gave us that information."

Alisa looked at Lars, somewhat surprised. "At all?"

Lars shook his head. "At all," he confirmed.

"Oh my," Alisa said, "My apologies! Please forgive me for my carelessness!"

Lars sighed. "It's alright. As long as we don't mention any more names, I think we'll be fine."

Alisa nodded happily. "Understood!"

"Hey!" Heihachi screamed. "Do you mind explaining why you're here in the first place?!"

"For once, I agree with the old man," Kazuya said. "The war's over, and this is a family dispute. This has nothing to do with you."

Lars looked at Kazuya. "As much as I hate to admit it, last time I checked, I'm was also a part of this family."

Jinpachi, arms folded, asked, "Oh? How?"

Lars pointed at Heihachi. "Ask your son."

Jinpachi turned his attention at Heihachi, who was trying to find the right words. "Well…," Heihachi began, "he's my son… technically."

"What?" Asuka screamed in her head.

"What do you mean by 'technically'?" Jinpachi asked suspiciously, his anger obviously rising.

"He's illegitimate," Heihachi explained nonchalantly.

"What?!" Jinpachi bellowed.

"And to this day I STILL don't remember his mother," Heihachi muttered to himself, scratching his chin.

"Fine by me," Lars said. "As for why I'm here," he turned his attention back to Jin, "it's obvious that that little stunt you pulled was a failure, and that you're willing to go to those lengths just to destroy the Devil Gene. I'm sorry Jin, but despite the fact that I saw bits of a good man in you the last time we met, it's obvious that you're too much of a threat to mankind. Despite the fact that you're trying to, in your own words and way, save the world, there are obviously some consequences to your plans that even YOU can't foretell. You can justify that they are for the greater good, but all I see are people dying needlessly for the sake of your goals!"

"Your lack of respect for human life is surprising to say the least," Alisa said softly. "Even I, a robot, appreciate the importance of a human life more than you do." She placed her hand over where her "heart" would've been if she was a human and said, with a sad smile, "I've made such good friends after I re-booted, and made lovely memories with all of them, memories that I hope will stay in my memory banks forever." She put hands down to her sides. "I will not allow you to hurt my friends, or risk you sacrificing them for your own goals!" Chainsaws popped out of her arms. "So please, make this easy for all of us, Jin Kazama."

"What do you mean?" Jin demanded.

"It should be obvious by now," Lars said. "You caused a global war, killed countless people, and destroyed countless peoples' property. And that's only scratching the surface. We're taking you in." He turned to Kazuya. "And with you responsible for all those acts of crime that Jinpachi mentioned earlier, we're taking you in too," he turned to Heihachi, "and you for your crimes on child abuse," he looked at both Anna and Nina, "and your crimes as assassins," he turned to Jinpachi, "and we'll help Jinpachi rest easy in the afterlife," he turned to Kuma, "and we'll be taking you back to the zoo."

"Hey! Don't treat me like I'm some kind of animal!" Kuma growled.

Jin glared at Lars. "I have no interest in going anywhere with you."

Lars cracked his knuckles. "Then I guess you leave us no choice."

Nina turned to Jin. "I can probably take on my sister and a bear, but the robot will DEFINITELY be a problem."

Jin nodded. "Understood." He looked at Alisa and cried, "Alisa, shut down!"

Everyone waited for a few seconds, but, to everyone's surprise, Alisa didn't shut down. "I'm afraid to inform you that your previous program has been removed from my overall programming," Alisa said cheerfully.

A smile was seen on Lar's face. "You think that after what happened last time I would just get her repaired just to have you use her programming against us again? You underestimate us, Jin Kazama."

"Yeah, but you're no techie either," Kazuya replied. "And she's not exactly your average robot. How did you reprogram a robot like her?"

Alisa turned to Kazuya. "Lars took me to Violet Systems, where the head of the company used their vast resources to both repair and reprogram me, terminating my link with Jin Kazama." She tilted her head. "According to my past records, you should know Violet Systems Kazuya. You have met the head of the company, Violet, in a previous King of the Iron Fist Tournament before."

Kazuya thought for a moment. "I don't seem to recall beating a 'Violet'." Kazuya grinned diabolically. "But I'll make sure to give him a little present for helping the enemy of my enemy."

Alisa gasped, covered her mouth with her hands, and turned to Lars, "My apologies! I wasn't supposed to say mention the name of one of our allies, was I?"

Lars thought for a moment. "Well… considering the fact that you gave him his pseudo name, I guess we can let this one slide."

Heihachi laughed at his illegitimate son's words. "You're taking us too lightly boy! Your robot might be able to take on Kuma and those little girls over there!" he said, pointing at the Williams sisters, "but if you think you can take us all on and turn us all in alive, then I kindly advise you to wake up from whatever dream you're dreaming as quickly as possible!"

Lars faced Heihachi. "And you underestimate me… father." He added a great deal of disgust to the word "father". With a snap of his fingers, a large group of armed men in armor appeared from behind Lars and Alisa, guns raised and ready to fire.

Heihachi couldn't believe his eyes. "The Tekken Force?!"

"I did say they were the few that got revived," Lars said. He looked at everyone. "Please, turn yourselves in willingly, or we'll be forced to shoot."

Nina surveyed the opposition. "He's not messing around," she said. "He's got men of all ranks with him. Crows, Falcons, Hawks, Owls. All of them are here and armed to the tooth."

"Oh, come on Nina," Anna said, "don't tell me you're not used to handling this many men?"

"I have no problem with handling a couple of guys," Kuma growled softly to Heihachi, "but you know I'm not bulletproof!"

"We shouldn't have to worry about this in the first place!" Heihachi mumbled furiously. He took a step forward.

Some of the Tekken Force soldiers aimed their guns at Heihachi. "Freeze!" a random Crow ordered, "Or we'll shoot!"

Heihachi angrily folded is arms. "I am Heihachi Mishima! I am the true head of the Mishima Financial Group! I was the one that created the Tekken Force to begin with!" He glared at the soldiers who had their guns pointed at him. "You will not shoot!"

Alisa tilted her head to the side in confusion. "I do not understand the reasoning behind that statement. Would you care to elaborate?"

"There's no point Alisa," Lars said. He looked at Heihachi. "A flawed man has flawed reasoning."

"Why you…," Heihachi muttered, taking another step forward.

"Stay where you are! This is your last warning!" the Crow cried.

"Oh, so we're at our last warning, are we?" Kazuya asked, amused. "Too bad they're facing opposition who won't give them a seconds warning."

Alisa turned to Kazuya. "What exactly do you mean?" she asked.

"It's sad," Jin said, "but it looks like I have no choice."

Lars's eyes grew wide at Jin's statement. "What do you mean by that?!"

As if they had rehearsed this beforehand, Kazuya and Jin both snapped their fingers at the same time. For a second, something happened, but then, Alisa seemed to sense something. "Lars!" she cried, as she spread out her jets, picked Lars up, and flying him high into the air.

Lars, taken aback by his friend's sudden actions, cried, "Alisa, what are you doing?!"

But before Alisa could explain, an explosion was heard down on the ground, an explosion that had engulfed the entire Tekken Force squadron. The cries of pain from the Tekken Force soldiers could be heard, despite the fact that the sound of the explosion was still resonating in the air. Most of the soldiers were on the ground, either too injured to get up or dead, and the few that were still able to get to their feet picked up their guns (which had been forced out of their hands by the explosion) and were prepared to shoot, but all of them were shot down before they could do anything, their blood trailing down their armor as their bodies slowly fell to the ground. Lars, Alisa, Asuka, Kuma and Jinpachi watched the scene before them in horror, while Heihachi and Kazuya had smug smiles appear on their faces and Jin, Nina and Anna looking somewhat indifferent to all the carnage.

When everything finally settled down, and Alisa set Lars slowly back on the ground, Jinpachi turned to Kazuya and asked, "What… just did you just do?"

Kazuya smirked. "Let's just say my half-brother wasn't the only one smart enough to bring in his own fire power." He turned to Jin. "And by the looks of it, I doubt we were the only ones."

As if on cue, groups of large, human looking robots walked out of the shadows and stood behind both Kazuya and Jin. Jin's robots looked a little bit different from Kazuya's and vice versa.

"Oh?" Kazuya asked amused. "You had your own Jack robots?"

Jin decided that this time around, he would humor his father. "New and improved versions of the Jack-5 robot. Built to be ten times more powerful than the original Jack-5." He glanced at Kazuya's Jacks. "And yours?"

"Jack-6. Our own new and improved model of the Jack-5, with improvements that best suited our… personal interests."

They continued to stare at each other, unaware that Lars was frantically running towards the heap of his dead comrades. Seeing that one was still stirring, Lars gently laid the soldier's back against his knee and the back of his head against his hand, and gently shook him on the shoulder. "Hang in there! We'll get you help as soon as we can!" He turned to Alisa, anger evident in his eyes. "Why did you save me?! They needed your help more than I did!"

The soldier in Lars's arms, breathing heavily, forced himself to look at Lars and say, "Lars… don't be mad at Alisa… it was us… we were the ones that told her… to save you instead of us… if anything happened." He slowly removed his helmet, to reveal the face of a man with short hair and a thin beard, trying to breathe the new found air outside of his helmet.

"Tougou," Lars choked, obviously fighting back tears.

Tougou forced a smile on his face for his friend. "We all knew… that you were the only one… out of all of us… that could stop them." He took a moment to catch his breath. "Continue… the mission… for us." Another painful breath. "Your life… isn't just yours… anymore." He turned to Alisa. "You too… Alisa…. And by the way…," Tougou forced one last painful smile, "take care of him for us… alright?"

Alisa nodded. "Understood," she said softly.

Tougou's expression started to soften. "That's… good." He closed his eyes.

Lars's eyes widened in horror. "Tougou?" he shook him gently. "Tougou!" No matter what he did, Tougou wouldn't open his eyes. "Tougou! Tougou!" Still no response. Lars shook his head. "Tougou."

Kazuya couldn't help but laugh. "Wasn't he your friend that died during the war?" He started to laugh even harder. "How ironic that your enemy brought him back, only for his own friend to lead him back to his death!"

"Shut up," Lars growled. He gently laid Tougou's body on the ground and stood up, his fists clenched. "You think that you can do something like this and get away with it?" Lars looked at Kazuya, revealing a menacing glare. "What you just did wasn't just laying waste to an enemy's soldiers, but killing all of an enemy's family." He turned around to fully face his half-brother. "I swear, on my life, that I will avenge my family's deaths and complete the task that they were willing to risk their lives to do!"

"If they were your family and you cared so much about them," Jin asked, "then why did you bring them here in the first place?"

Lars turned to Jin. "What?"

"Obviously you knew the dangers that this mission would bring, and obviously you and your 'family' agree that you are more capable of a mission like this then they are, so why did you bring them here in the first place?" Jin asked nonchalantly.

Lars's anger was quickly rising due to Jin's apparent indifference. "What?!"

Kazuya let out another laugh. "What he's saying is that when it comes down to it, you only have yourself to blame for their deaths! All we did was act the way we always did, but even though you were all well aware of how we usually act, you brought them here anyway!"

"This is the difference between you and me Lars." Jin said. "I'm willing to do things all by myself, to stand completely alone in my mission to save the world, because I understand and have fully accepted the fact that I'm a threat to everyone around me, and letting myself be apprehended by the authorities would only slow down my mission, and since you were all so willing to die for your cause, I saw no choice other than to grudgingly help my father kill off your so-called 'family'. I can compromise my principles for the greater good, and I have realized that the ends justify the means. It doesn't matter how many people get hurt, or are killed in the process, as long as the world becomes peaceful and safe from any future evils, it doesn't matter how many lives are lost. As long as there are still people left on this Earth, I think we can manage."

Alisa couldn't believe her ears. "That's… so cruel."

"Jin!" Lars cried. "You're even more of a devil than I thought!"

"You can say that again," Asuka thought to herself. This whole Devil vs. Angel thing was more serious than either she or Jun realized.

Jin didn't seem to have any reaction to Lars's words. "Believe what you want to believe."

"Hey!" Kazuya cried to Lars. "Didn't I warn you? The last time we saw each other, I warned you that it was the fate of our family to fight and betray each other!"

Jinpachi shook his head sadly. "It's the curse of the Mishima bloodline."

Lars took a moment to contemplate on the words he had just heard. "Fine," Lars said. "It's become painfully obvious to me that neither of you are turning yourselves in willingly, and that this may be the last time we may ever meet each other in one place like this ever again, so I've made my decision." He took a deep breath and declared. "I will be just like you… Jin." He looked at Jin. "I too, will compromise my principles to benefit the greater good." He turned to Jinpachi. "And I also agree with you… grandfather, that the Mishima bloodline is a curse, and that," he turned to Kazuya, "this family, full of terrible people, will only fight and betray each other, leading to even more terrible things happening, so… I have decided to end the conflict today! I will rid the world of its curse of the Mishimas, and avenge those that this family has wronged and my comrades in arms… by killing each and every one of you today!" He cracked his knuckles. "And please don't try to run away… because if you do -"

"Then I'll simply do all that I can to inhibit your escape," Alisa finished, cheerfully readying herself for an assault.

Lars looked at Alisa in disbelief. "Alisa, are you sure you want to do this?" he asked. "You don't have to you know, this being a family matter and all."

Alisa shook her head. "No. I wish to fight and help bring an end to all of this hate and suffering just as much as you do. Besides," she said, her eyes softening, "the Tekken Force and Tougou were my friends too! And not just them! I've got friends that I want to protect too! I've seen how this family has found ways to ruin other people's lives. It goes against every known moral code. It's because of one of their projects that Shin Kamiya, someone who could've had a happy life if it weren't for the Mishima family, suffered and died under their hand!" Alisa shook her head. "I have people I want to avenge too!" She looked at Lars. "So please, do not rob me of this opportunity."

Lars couldn't say anything at first, but when he finally found his voice again, he smiled, and said, "Do what you want."

Alisa smiled back. "I'll make sure to do so!"

Lars let out a little laugh. "Then with death being the only one stopping us… we will end the curse of the Mishima bloodline!"

"Not if I end it first!" a voice cried.

"Oh geez," Nina said, rubbing her temples, "another one?"

"Yeah, another one?!" Asuka screamed in her head, scratching her head furiously. "It's getting to the point where I have no idea who these people are! I don't know Lars, Alisa, Tougou, this Raven guy that they mentioned. Either the surprises need to stop now, or this is going to grow into a problem that I can't handle all by myself!"

The owner of the voice walked out of the shadows (and hopefully that's the last one that'll be walking out of the shadows anytime soon), to reveal a silver haired man with an indigo vest, violet dress shirt, leather gloves and shoes, brown pants, and sunglasses holding a laptop.

"Violet!" Alisa cried in surprise.

"Violet" held up a finger to signal her to stop talking, and said, "Actually Alisa, since we're all facing imminent death right now, and we're among friends, I think it's safe to say my real name now. Well? Don't you think that's just," he dramatically took off his sunglasses, "excellent?"

"Lee, what are you doing here?!" Lars asked.

Lee smirked. "I hacked into the Mishima Financial Group and G-Corporation's computers and found out that their leaders both had the same plans for today! My intuition told me that something serious was going to happen, and what do you know, I was right! I mean, look at what we have here! It's practically a family reunion!" Lee cringed a bit, "A reunion of all the people I despise," he turned to Lars and Alisa, "with a few exceptions!"

"Just answer the question already!" Kazuya cried. "What are you doing here!?"

Lee smiled. "Simple. I came here to settle the score once and for all," he turned to Jin, "and to get back what should be rightfully mine in the first place!"

Kazuya laughed. "We may have been equally matched when we were kids, but things are different now. Very different. And besides, from what I've heard, I've already beaten you, or should I say, Violet. What makes you think you fare any better now then you did back then?"

Lee smiled, and raised his index finger. "One… finger."

Kazuya gave Lee a smirk of his own. "Jack… sixes." He snapped his fingers and the robots started to ready their guns and target Lee, but Lee used his one index finger to press a key on his laptop, and immediately the Jack-6s stopped what they were doing and shut themselves off. The same happened to Jin's new and improved Jack-5s.

After seeing a look of shock appear on Kazuya's face, Lee laughed. "Oh, come on 'brother'! If I can hack into your computers, then what's stopping me from hacking into your robots too?!"

"As much as I hate to admit it, you've got a point," Kazuya said. "But we don't just have robots, now do we? Anna!"

"Nina!" Jin cried.

"Kuma!" Heihachi commanded.

"Alrighty then," Nina said.

"Looks like I'm up," Anne said gleefully.

"Here I go!" Kuma growled.

The three rushed at Lee, only to be suddenly knocked to the ground by a sudden, quick flurry of attacks.

As the three of them quickly got back to their feet, everyone looked to see who had somehow managed to outmaneuver two assassins and a trained bear. To everyone's surprise, it wasn't a person, but a robot.

Lee smiled with pride. "Let me introduce you to Violet Systems's newest in latest robot technology," he said, now gesturing to the robot now beside him. "Behold, the Super Combot DX! He's able to analyze, identify, and learn all of your attack patterns. A fitting personal bodyguard for a man like me, don't you think?"

"Hmph." Heihachi said. "Looks like a hunk of junk if you ask me."

"Considering the fact that you were never interested in anything I ever did, that's not a surprise to me…'father'."

"'Father'?!" Jinpachi cried. He turned back to Heihachi furiously. "Another illegitimate son?!"

"Him?! No! Of course not!" Heihachi cried. "He's adopted!"

"Only because you wanted me to be a pawn in your plans!" Lee cried. "When my parents died when I was young, I had to do anything I could to survive! I had to constantly steal food from stores, look for scraps in the trash, learn to defend myself the hard way!" Lee shook his head. "When you came up to me and said that you, one of the richest and most powerful men in the world, running one of the greatest conglomerates in the world, wanted to adopt me, I thought that you were an godsend! But eventually I realized that all you wanted me to do was to shape up your actual, biological son, hoping that my hard work would motivate your son to work just as hard as I did, so that you could give the company to HIM! You acted like you cared, gave me praise that didn't amount to anything, blinded me with dreams and fantasies that I would somehow inherit a conglomerate that already had Kazuya's name on it! And when he wasn't fit enough in your eyes to take over the company, you just sent me away and ran it yourself!"

Jinpachi had been staring at Lee throughout his entire monologue. "Heihachi," he growled, his anger reaching its breaking point, "what did you do?!"

"I did what you never had the guts to do!" Heihachi cried. "I wanted to make the Mishima Financial Group into the best conglomerate the world has ever seen and will ever see! And in order to do that, we need to make a long running legacy! But the way Kazuya was before," Heihachi shook his head disapprovingly, "he didn't have any of the qualities needed to rise the conglomerate to greatness! One doesn't get to the top by being frail or being a push-over, so I found someone that was willing to fight for the company, and used him to motivate your grandson to be the man he should've been! Sadly, it failed, but no matter!" Heihachi folded his arms and grinned. "Once I get my hands on my son and grandson's Devil Gene, fuse it with one of Ogre's genomes, and inject them into my body, I'll become the ultimate life form, and I'll run the conglomerate from now until forever!" Heihachi flung his head back and laughed loudly. "And after that… anything's possible! Even world domination!"

Jinpachi was almost lost for words. "Diabolical!" was all he could say.

"Diabolical," Lee said, "is the perfect word to describe this family! I mean," he gestured towards Heihachi, "a man who wants to become an immortal," to Kazuya, "a man who wants to take over the world and obtain all of the powers of the devil," to Jin, "and a man who admits that he's willing to kill in order to bring peace to the world!" Lee shook his head disapprovingly. "They have all been diabolical, and if anyone has been paying attention lately to the history of the conglomerate, then they would know that no one other than those with the Mishima blood running through their veins has ever led the conglomerate! And what do they do with all that power? Start wars, kill those who oppose them, play God, and secretly make plans for world domination!"

Lee shook his head disapprovingly again. "You're all making the company look bad!" He thought for a moment, and then shrugged. "But since this is a diabolical family, I guess that's only natural." He turned to Jinpachi. "The only one that was never truly diabolical was Jinpachi, but you came back from the depths of Hell to, in your words, 'set things straight', didn't you?" Lee sighed. "Even the good ones turn diabolical in the end, even after death of all things!"

A twisted smile then slowly appeared on Lee's face. "So shouldn't it be obvious that the conglomerate needs to be set in a new direction, a direction that doesn't involve Mishimas or anyone with Mishima blood for that matter?" He took a moment to see if anyone would respond to his question. When no one did, he decided to continue with his monologue. "I think you all get the point by now. After I defeat you all, the conglomerate will finally be mine and will finally be in good hands! Being that I'm adopted, I don't have the 'curse' of the Mishima bloodline, and thanks to my 'father's' schooling I have the knowledge and skills needed for such a task. And let's face it boys… I may not be the holiest person in church, but compared to the likes of you… I'm a saint! So if you don't mind… I'll be taking the company off of your hands."

"… I do not seem to understand," Alisa said.

Lee looked at her, an eyebrow raised in surprise. "I'm sorry, but what don't you get?"

Alisa thought for a moment. "Well… according to what you've said, you want to be the new head of the Mishima Financial Group, correct?"

Lee nodded. "Yes."

"Then you must care about everything in the said conglomerate, is that correct?"

Lee nodded again. "Yes."

"Then that also means that you care about the Tekken Force, correct?"

"Well yes, it HAS been an important part the conglomerate recently."

"And it appears that you have the ability to control the Jacks via computer."

Lee sighed. "Please get to the point," he said, sounding a bit annoyed from all the questions.

"Well," Alisa began, "if you were capable of controlling the Jacks all this time, then why didn't you stop them from terminating the entire Tekken Force?"

Lars gasped in sudden realization. He turned to Lee. "She's right! Why didn't you save them?! Why did you let them die at the hands of your so-called 'diabolical' family?!"

Lee rubbed his temples and sighed. "It's not that convenient you know. This laptop's main purpose for today was to help Combot analyze all of you while we were hiding, and to customize him best to the anticipated fight. Please take my word for it, I did not expect my brother and his son to kill the Tekken Force, nor did I expect you and Alisa to come and BRING the Tekken Force along with you. Their attack was just as big as a surprise to me as it was to you. I couldn't have hacked into their systems quickly enough to stop them, and I was only able to do that now because you all were talking long enough for me to do it." Lee shrugged. "Besides…," he turned to Lars, "in a way, I'm sort of glad I didn't stop them."

Lars couldn't believe what he was hearing. "What?!"

"Well," Lee began, "if I did stop them, then I wouldn't have been able to see your sudden willingness to compromise your principles like Jin in order to fight for the greater good." Lee let out a heavy sigh. "Honestly, first I find out that you have Mishima blood, and then I find out that you're willing to compromise your principles and make up reasons to justify your actions! Don't you see?! You're turning into one of them!" he cried, pointing at the less agreeable members of their family. "It'll only be a matter of time before you finally become a full-fledged Msihima! And we can't have another Mishima potentially taking over the conglomerate and using it as he sees fit, can we?"

"What are you talking about?!" Lars cried. "I don't want the conglomerate! You're become paranoid Lee!"

"Well," Lee shrugged casually, "can't be too careful now, can I?"

"You're right," Jinpachi said, his head down. "You can never be too careful."

Lee turned his attention to his adopted grandfather and asked, "Now what are you talking about?"

Jinpachi shook his head in dismay. "I had originally only come back to destroy Heihachi, Kazuya and Jin, because I believed that it was the curse of the Mishima bloodline that needed to be lifted, but I see now that that is not the case, no, not exactly. In reality, it is the curse of the Mishimas in general!" He looked at his somewhat confused family and their companions. "Everyone who is linked to this family is very much a part of the curse as the Mishimas are!" He turned to Lars and Alisa. "Lars's mother and Lars forcibly being a part of the worst family in the world and Lars unwittingly leading his fellow soldiers to their death; Alisa, a robot created by a conglomerate which has always been run by Mishima blood, forced to do tasks that Jin commands her to do, despite the fact that it's quite clear that she is miraculously capable of making her own decisions and basing them on her own judgment!" He pointed at the dead Tekken Force members on the ground, "The Tekken Force members who bravely tried to stop them, only to die and leave everything that they were fighting for behind in vain!" He turned to Nina and Anna. "Two sisters, forced to engage in combat because of the people who hired them!"

"I don't really mind actually," Anna said.

"With a job like this, it was always kind of expected," Nina added shrugging.

Jinpachi didn't seem to hear them though, as he continued with his speech, now looking at Kuma. "A bear, forced to live a life that he never chose!"

"Tch," Heihachi whispered to Kuma. "He doesn't realize that you LIKE being my bodyguard! The afterlife has made the old man delusional!"

"Actually, a day off once in a while wouldn't hurt," Kuma growled.

Jinpachi pointed Lee. "And Lee, who has been cheated by all of the members of the Mishima family in one way or another, turned vengeful, and has seemingly devoted his life to exacting his revenge!" He looked sadly at Jun's grave. "And Jun, a sweet and loving woman, for one reason or another, loved a devil of a man, and sadly gave birth to the son of a devil, who can't even begin to remember his mother even if he tried!"

That seemed to hit a nerve. "That's not true!" Jin cried.

Jinpachi looked at Jin. "Oh? Then tell me… would your mother have done any of the things you've done?"

"Alright Jinpachi!" Asuka thought, impressed. "Way to put him on the spot!"

After a moment of silence, Jin growled his answer. "She didn't have to go through the things I did. There's no telling what she would've done."

Jinpachi sighed. "Then you leave me no choice." He faced the rest of his family. "It ends." He got into his fighting stance. "Here and now."

Heihachi laughed. "You may have been considered as one of the greatest martial artists in the world, but even ten is too much for one person! You're not me you know!"

"What Heihachi says is true," Alisa said. "If you had some personal assistance, such as what Nina, Anna, Kuma, Super Combot DX, and I do for our comrades, then your chances of winning would have increased, but as you are now, I am sorry to inform you that your chances of winning are low. Especially if, because of your lack of a comrade or assistance, all other combatants could potentially target you at the same time due to your lower chances of success. 'Weeding out the competition' as some might put it."

Jinpachi looked at Alisa, and said, "…Who said that I was alone?"

The moment he said that, everyone surveyed their surroundings and raised their guard up. "Aw, come on! Seriously?! There are more people hiding around here?!" Asuka cried (in her head), looking around to see if she could spot Jinpachi's "comrade".

"Where are you all looking?" Jinpachi asked. "My comrade has been right in front of you this whole time!"

"What?!" Heihachi cried. "Where?!"

Jinpachi gestured towards Jun's grave. "Right here."

Jin's eyes grew wide. "What?!"

Jinpachi turned to Jun's grave. "Come on out… Jun!"

Kazuya's eyes grew wide in disbelief. "Jun?!"

Jin also couldn't believe his ears. "Mother?!"

As they were all staring at Jun's grave, purple goop slowly started leaking out of it. The purple goop created a giant purple puddle that was growing larger and larger by the second, to the point where everyone around the grave had to slowly start backing away from it to avoid touching the ominous looking goop.

When the purple goop finally stopped spreading it had grown to about the same size as a small, backyard, swimming pool, with everyone except Jinpachi (who the purple goop had somehow avoided) standing at the sides of the pool of goop, either looking fearfully at the stuff or trying to anticipate what Jinpachi's next move was going to be. Jinpachi didn't make another move though. The purple goop, on the other hand, did. The purple goop, as quickly as it had spread, slowly receded back to Jun's grave, but instead of going back into the hole it came from, it built its way up, until eventually, it looked like a dark, human-sized, purple sphere was resting in front of Jun's grave. It kept that form for a few seconds, before the goop again receded, this time back into the hole it came from, but this time leaving something that was surprisingly inside of it behind. What was inside noticeably shocked everyone, even the pokerfaced Jin. Inside the sphere of goop was a woman with short, black hair, who would have been naked if not for the goop covering her body.

"Unknown," Kazuya hissed.

"I'm sorry," Anna said, raising her hand up and getting everyone's attention, "but from what you said, I thought Jun was going to come out of all that goop."

Jinpachi gestured towards Unknown. "This is Jun."

Anna shook her head. "No, that's Unknown. I mean… I can see how people can get the two mixed up and all but trust me, they're completely different."

"Oh? Is that so?" Jinpachi asked.

"Well, yeah," she answered nonchalantly. "Except for the obvious yellow eyes, they don't have the same height."

"Not to mention the fact that Unknown is left handed and Jun Kazama is right handed," Nina added.

Heihachi laughed. "Well, there you go! The assassins called you out!" He continued to laugh. "You know, for a second, you really had me going there, but I guess in the end it turns out that it was all just a big bluff!"

"Looks like," Kazuya mumbled.

"Yeah… it was just a bluff… nothing more," Jin muttered to himself.

"Considering the skills you two possess, I do not doubt that what you have just said to me is true," Jinpachi began, "however, this woman before you all is indeed Jun Kazama."

"That's not possible!" Lars said.

"According to my records, Jinpachi Mishima has never been known for lying," Alisa informed.

"Then how is it possible that Unknown is Jun?" Lars asked, loud enough for everyone to hear.

"The answer is simple," Jinpachi said. "After Ogre attacked Jun and knocked Jin out, Ogre absorbed all of Jun's ki and abilities into his own being, and left both Jin and Jun for dead. Having had all of her ki taken away from her, Jun's fighting spirit was the only thing that kept her from dying the moment Ogre took all of her ki away, but her death was inevitable. Seeing her in her vulnerable state, a werewolf-like spirit, the Forest Demon, came up to her and possessed her using the evil goop you all saw earlier, intending to use her body to meet his own objectives. For years, Jun was under the demon's control, until one day, she broke free."

"What?!" Jin asked. "How?!"

Jinpachi looked at Jin. "She saw you at the mercy of Ogre, and before he could take away all your ki, she interfered, without the Forest Demon's consent. Using the powers the Forest Demon gave her body, Jun, or Unknown (as you all call this version of her), created a wall to separate you from Ogre, and with an indomitable obstacle in his path, and Ogre sensing no living thing behind it except a defeated Jin, left his prey for another day. Knowing that the demon would be angry about her actions, Jun fled to a desolate place, where she and the Forest Demon had a battle for control over Jun's body, with Jun ultimately turning out to be the victor, destroying the demon inside of her and freeing her from his control, but at the cost of her own life. It was only because of the Forest Demon that Jun could stay in the world of the living without her ki, and without it, Jun died, her spirit ascending towards the afterlife, however, a part of her spirit remained in her body, which still had some of the demon's corrupt goop on it."

Jin couldn't believe what he was hearing. "…Why?" he asked.

Jinpachi's face glowered. "Because of you." After seeing a surprised look on Jin's face, Jinpachi continued his explanation. "Let me clarify." He pointed at everyone in the family. "It was because of ALL of you! While she was possessed by the Forest Demon, she saw how vulnerable and lost you all were, how bad things had gotten with her family, how influenced by evil you all were! Her regret, doubt, anger and sadness fueled the power of the evil goop on her body, so even though her spirit passed on, her regret, doubt, anger, and sadness were forced to stay, and she became the entity you all call… 'Unknown'!"

"Impossible!" Kazuya said, under his breath.

Jinpachi looked at his grandson. "Oh… it's quite possible."

"Even if that is true," Alisa said, "you have failed to give an appropriate explanation for Nina and Anna's claims!"

Jinpachi looked to the colorful robot. "Isn't it obvious by now? When she was possessed by the Forest Demon, his attributes affected hers, causing some of the changes that the William sisters pointed out, such as the yellow eyes, the different height, the change in dominant hand…."

"Isn't that a little bit too convenient?" Kuma growled.

"Well," Lee said, his hand on his chin, thinking, "to be fair, that's what the Devil Gene does, so it really isn't too farfetched."

"Great," Heihachi muttered, rolling his eyes, "it's official. TWO people from the depths of Hell!"

"I wouldn't take TWO people from the depths of Hell too lightly if I were you, foolish son of mine," Jinpachi said. "Who knows? Two may have left its gates, but in the end, maybe more will be forced to dive into its fiery abyss!" Jinpachi got into his battle stance, purple energy violently bursting out of his body. Without even looking at his accomplice, he said, "Jun," Unknown looked at him through the corner of her eye, "leave no survivors."

Hearing this, Unknown smiled, and got into her fighting stance, looking more than eager to start the inevitable fight between this more-than-dysfunctional family.

"This power…," Kazuya said. For a moment, he could only stare in awe at his grandfather and his companion, but eventually, an evil grin appeared on his face. "Well then," he said, "I guess that just means that I don't have any reason to hold back." Dark energy enveloped him, transforming his body into the same thing Asuka saw in her dream, Devil Kazuya. Kazuya smirked. "So," he got into his fighting stance, "you fools think that you're all ready to face the devil, huh?"

Jin apparently wasn't listening. Head hung low, his bangs covering his eyes, it looked like he was in a completely different world. "Cut the bull," he hissed. "That isn't my mother!"

Jinpachi looked at Jin, his eyebrow raised. "Oh? And why is that?"

Jin's fist was clenched, and it was shaking violently. "My mother was a kind and benevolent woman! She dreamed of peace! Not only that, but she was strong, determined, and unyielding! What you're saying about her and…," he pointed at Unknown in disgust, "that… THING is a complete insult to her and her memory! There's no way someone like her could have turned into something like… like… THAT!" Jin looked at Jinpachi, anger evident in his eyes. "And you have the NERVE… to come up to me and spout these lies about her in front of my face!? Unforgivable!" Dark energy enveloped Jin, transforming him into Devil Jin. "I hope you're ready to face the consequences!"

Jinpachi gave Jin a solemn stare. "Your loyalty to your mother is admirable, but for you to not accept the truth, even when it is right in front of you," Jinpachi shook his head sadly, "then maybe you are more delusional than you realize." Seeing the younger man's look of disgust from his remark, Jinpachi readied himself, again, for battle. "Come! It is about time you face the truth!"

Despite the challenge being set, no one moved. All were looking at their opposition, waiting to see who would make the first move. "Alisa," Lars whispered, "this mission has become more dangerous than we had anticipated."

Alisa nodded, not taking her eyes off of their opponents. "Agreed."

"If you want to leave you can. I'd understand."

Alisa shook her head. "And leave one of my friends behind? No. That is not what friends do Lars!" She took a moment to smile at her friend.

Lars stared at her for a moment in awe at the girl's conviction, and then gave her a small smile of his own. "So it's settled then."

Alisa nodded happily. "It is settled," she confirmed.

"Neither one of us is leaving."

Alisa shook her head. "That is true."

"It's either we live, or we die."

Alisa nodded. "Affirmative."

"Win or lose."

"Actually," Alisa said, "I was hoping that it would be more of a 'sweet victory' or 'bitter victory'."

Lars looked at her, puzzled. "Hm?"

Alisa smiled. "If it looks like we are losing, or one of them is escaping and we are unable to apprehend them, then I will set off the neutron bomb inside my head."

Lars's eyes grew wide. "Wait… what?!"

Alisa nodded. "It has a ten kilometer radius, and the radiation will spread in all directions, so even if they have transformed into devils, no one can escape!"

"Um… no offense Alisa, but I know for a fact that your father is Geppeto Boskonovitch, a good-natured scientist. He isn't the type of person who would make a neutron bomb, let alone consider using it!"

"And you forget," Alisa gently argued, "that I, as a person, can think for myself and have the determination needed to protect those important to me at any cost!" Alisa looked sadly at the ground. "It was my decision to install a neutron bomb inside my head. My decision and my decision alone!"

Lars gasped at his friend's words, but then gave her a quick nod, and said, "You're right. I forgot. Sorry."

Alisa giggled. "No apologizes are necessary. But now that I think about it, maybe a neutron bomb was too extravagant!"

Meanwhile, Kuma and Heihachi were having a little conversation of their own.

"I don't really like our odds here," Kuma growled softly.

"Bah!" Heihachi cried. "You underestimate me old friend!"

"Look," Kuma growled nervously, "I know you can survive a big explosion like the one in Hon-maru, but this is a completely different ballgame!"

"Which is why," Heihachi said, digging through one of his pockets, "we up our game!" He took out a small, capped, black bottle.

Kuma's eyes grew wide. "Is that the old formula or the new one?"

Heihachi cringed. "The old one." He then whispered, "The new one had some… complications to it." Kuma nodded in understanding. Heihachi smiled, uncapped the bottle, and drank the contents inside. Black energy enveloped him for a second and, as quickly as it came, vanished to reveal a much younger looking version of Heihachi. "Ah!" Heihachi sighed. "Almost as good as new! I feel so alive!" He dropped the bottle and got into his battle stance. "Now Kuma, let's show them who they're messing with!"

Kuma looked longingly at the bottle on the ground for a moment, before tapping on Heihachi's shoulder and asking, "Do you have any more of that?"

"Huh?" Heihachi frowned. "Of course not! I only need one, don't I? What, a bottle for you? Why would you need it?"

Kuma shrugged. "Well, I'm not getting any younger, and I've got all these aches and pains nowadays. I thought that maybe I'd try some of that stuff once in a while."

Heihachi shrugged. "I don't really think it works on bears."

"Well we don't know until we try, right?"

"Yeah, but there's a procedure you know…."

As the two were whispering back and forth to one another, Nina and Anna had taken notice in Heihachi's younger look.

"Well that just makes my odds of surviving this battle SO much better," Nina and Anna thought.

Just then, Lee let out a heavy, dramatic sigh. "You know, I really hoped that it wouldn't have to come to this, but you all really give me no choice."

Kazuya stepped forward. "What are you talking about?" he demanded.

Lee smiled as he used his free hand to quickly type something on his laptop. "Well, if I can control your Jacks, then surely…," he pressed the last key hard, and said dramatically, "I can activate their self-destruct sequences."

"What?!" everyone cried as they set their eyes on the Jack robots that had been previously shut down. True to his word, the Jacks turned themselves back on and prepared themselves for self-destruction.

"Just one finger," Lee said, raising his index finger for everyone to see, "and I can blast this whole island to kingdom come."

"According to my calculations," Alisa whispered to Lars, "the combined power of all of these Jacks' self-destruct sequences would be just as devastating as the neutron bomb in my head!"

"Wait," Anna cried, looking at Lee, "you're not serious, are you?!"

"Well if I've done it once, I can do it again, can I?"

Nina's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean by that?!"

Lee laughed. "Isn't it obvious by now?" He looked at Heihachi and Kazuya. "I was the reason why those Jack-4s attacked Heihachi and Kazuya at Hon-maru and I was also the reason why they all blew up in their faces!" Lee shook his head. "Sadly, the lesser versions of the ones we see before us didn't have the explosive power needed to finish the job with either of them, but you know what they say, 'if at first you don't succeed, try, try again'." Lee laughed. "Don't you think that's just…," he snapped his fingers, "excellent?"

"No. No it isn't," Kazuya said. "Besides, I don't think that's what Anna meant by you being 'serious'."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I'm pretty sure that what she meant was that she didn't think your _threat_ was serious."

"And why is that?"

Heihachi laughed. "Isn't it obvious?" He pointed accusingly at Lee. "You want to be the head of the Mishima Financial Group… and yet you threaten to blow everyone, even yourself, up?" Heihachi shook his head confidently, a smirk on his face. "No. This is a bluff. Admit it!"

Lee smirked. "Although I see the logic in your accusation, I'm sorry to point out that you forget the other factors in this situation," Lee said, gesturing towards everyone around him. "You see 'father', the truth is that if I'm gonna to go down, I'll do it on MY terms. Which means…," he placed his finger an inch above the button he needed to press in order to activate the self-destruct sequence, "if a certain someone," he glanced at Lars and Alisa, "is going to try and blow us all up, I'm at least going to try to beat him or her to the punch with an explosion of my own!"

"Wait!" Lars cried, "How did you know about the neutron bomb!?"

"Thank my Super Combot DX. He read your lip movements and told me what you were saying to each other. He also analyzed Alisa's systems and found the neutron bomb all on his own!" Lee sighed and looked affectionately at his creation. "Isn't he just excellent?" He sighed again. "Now, where were we again?" he asked, holding his chin, "Oh, that's right," he put his finger one inch above the keyboard again, "me being in charge, just like how it was supposed to be in the first place!"

"Not if I destroy that computer first!" both Nina and Anna thought, as they both took out a pistol and readily aimed them at Lee's laptop, but hesitated when Lee's robot immediately stood in the way of any possible attacks on the machine.

Lee wagged a disapproving finger at the Williams sisters. "Tisk tisk tisk ladies! Combot has already analyzed your movements! He knew what you were going to do the moment you did it, and reacted to it twice as fast as you ever could!" Lee smirked. "And I wouldn't shoot at him if I were you, because if I were you, I wouldn't want to waste my bullets on something that was bulletproof, don't you agree?!"

The two lowered their pistols and hesitated for a moment before Anna said, "You know what," she raised her pistol again, "what the heck?"

Nina smirked. "For once," she raised her own pistol, "I agree!"

The two fired shots at Combot, who expertly deflected the bullets and shielded Lee from them. Things looked hopeless for the two assassins, until suddenly, a red laser knocked Combot's head off of its shoulders. Shocked, everyone looked at the source of the red laser, which happened to be Jin, his eyes still showing signs of red from his laser.

"Drat!" Lee muttered under his breath, "I hadn't installed the Devil Data yet!"

Heihachi laughed. "See? Nothing more than a disappointment!"

Lee smirked again. "Well, no matter," he was preparing to push the "self-destruct key", "this will still end poorly for you!"

"Like I'd let you!" Kazuya cried, using his wings to fly and charge at his adopted brother, and the two engaged in battle, with Lee doing surprisingly well, holding his own against Devil Kazuya and making sure that his laptop was safe from harm all at the same time.

"Alisa, deal with them!" Lars cried, pointing at the two female assassins, as he ran towards Kazuya and Lee.

"Understood!" Alisa said as she flew towards the two assassins, who, by simply using eye contact, agreed to make a small truce in order to take down the armed-to-the-tooth robot girl.

As their battle commenced, Lars entered Lee and Kazuya's battle, giving the two a good surprise kick to their jaws, resulting in Lee's laptop flying into the air and Lars expertly catching it.

"Lee, listen to me!" Lars cried, raising his hands up to calm his former ally, "I'm not your enemy! We're on the same side!"

"And yet you were fully prepared to blow us all to smithereens, weren't you?"

"Well, yeah, but," Lars thought hard to come up with a good argument, "I was just prepared to do what needed to be done!"

"Tch, excuses, excuses!" Lee scoffed. "You're becoming more like them by the second!"

Lars's anger was rising to uncontrollable levels. "Do NOT compare me with them!"

"Oh? And why shouldn't I?" Lee asked, smirking. "At least I don't share their blood!"

"Well at least I don't share their attitude!" Lars cried, losing all control and charging at Lee. Taking advantage of Lars's anger, Lee simply dodged all of Lars's attacks until Lars looked like he was about to lose it, and when he saw that chance, kicked him straight in the nose and took his laptop back, waving it in front of Lars, a smirk on his face.

"Certainly have their temper, don't you?"

"Shut up!"

"Fine by me! Talk is cheap anyway!"

As the two charged at each other, Kazuya smirked, and said, "Fine then. Kill each, I don't care," he turned around to look at his son, "I've got bigger fish to fry."

Knowing what was coming next, Jin decided to make the first move, charging at his father at full force, but although the attack did seem to hurt Kazuya, Kazuya barely flinched or moved. Instead, he grabbed Jin by the horns, threw him down and got a few kicks in, before Jin retaliated with a laser, giving him some separation, some time to breathe and some time to get back on his feet.

Kuma surveyed the battle and said, "Well, I guess I'll take on Lars and Lee." He then mumbled, "It's either them or the devils or the girls that are armed to the tooth."

Heihachi laughed. "Fine by me!" He turned to face his father. "I need to send someone back where they came from."

Jinpachi knew what was coming. "Jun," he said, Unknown looking at him, "go." Unknown smiled, and charged at the two devils. Jinpachi faced his son. "No matter how strong you think you are, you must realize that you weren't prepared for this."

Heihachi laughed. "I'm prepared for anything! And even if there's the slight chance that I didn't prepare for something, I can handle anything that comes my way!"

"Oh?" Jinpachi asked. "Then surely you're prepared for THIS!" Jinpachi let out a loud battle cry as dark energy violently burst out of his body, the hard- hitting force of it all hitting Heihachi, who simply stood his ground, only being pushed back one to two steps.

Heihachi smirked. "You underestimate me old man!"

Jinpachi, seeing his son's resilience, said, "No, my boy! It is you who underestimates me!" Jinpachi screamed again, the dark energy bursting out more violently than before. This time, Heihachi was pushed much farther back, bits of fear and surprise showing on his face before he was pushed off his feet and slammed hard against a giant tree.

A little tired from his energy outburst, Jinpachi slowly walked up to Heihachi, and unfortunately, letting his guard down, because when Jinpachi was close enough, Heihachi grabbed him by the neck, attacked his father's midsection, and then hit Jinpachi with a powerful uppercut to the jaw, sending Jinpachi flying into the air, back to where he had previously stood.

Slowly getting back up to his feet and wiping the corner of his mouth, Jinpachi said, "Not bad, evil son of mine."

"Tch," Heihachi muttered, "that blast actually took a lot more out of me than I realized." He cracked his neck and knuckles. "Guess I have to take this fight seriously after all."

The two engaged each other properly this time, and that was it. Everyone was now participating in one of four fights, each of them dangerous and lethal in its own right. It didn't take long for Nina, Anna, and Alisa to take their guns out; Devil Kazuya and Devil Jin to use both of their lasers; Lee, Lars and Kuma starting to fight a little dirty; and Heihachi and Jinpachi creating shockwaves from the impacts of their fists alone. The only ones who weren't fighting at this point were the already dead Tekken Soldiers on the ground, the beheaded Super Combot DX standing completely still and untouched, and Asuka and her family, who were either hiding or in a _very_ dangerous place right now.

"I need to stop this!" Asuka thought. "But…," she cast a nervous glance at where her parents were hiding, "what about mom and dad?" She took a moment to think about her dilemma before she remembered the promise she had made to Jun.

* * *

Jun looked sadly at the ground and, after a long moment of silence, said, "This is all my fault."

"…Why?" Asuka asked, curious to see out how all this could possibly be Jun's fault.

With a wave of her hand, Jun had turned off all of the projections. All the images of everyone slowly vanished, and the environment slowly reverted back to its original pitch black and empty state. After that, Jun sighed heavily and answered, "I was scared for Jin. I was afraid that the darkness of the Mishima family would be a bad influence on him, drive him on the wrong path, so I ran off into the mountains so that I could raise him myself and teach him the strong moral standard that I wanted him to live by."

"And that's a good thing!" Asuka cried. "It's because of you that Jin still has Angel fighting inside of him!"

"But it's also because of me that Kazuya is the way he is today," Jun said. "I left him when he was the most confused and the most vulnerable. Heihachi knew this, and took advantage of Kazuya's confusion and vulnerability by throwing him down a volcano!" She shook her head. "I left him when he needed me most," she said bitterly. "And while I was raising Jin, I sensed a great evil approaching, but instead of trying to protect him, I told him that if anything happened to me, he should go to his grandfather!" A tinge of sadness could be seen in her eyes. "I should have done something, and even if I didn't, I told Jin to go to Heihachi of all people! How could I have been so stupid!?"

Asuka quickly scooped Jun's hands into hers. "Stop it!" Jun looked at the younger girl's face. For a moment, Jun saw that fire in her eyes again, but it was quickly extinguished by a new, gentle, comforting look. "Please stop," Asuka said again, but much more gently this time. "You can't blame yourself for all the bad things that happened in the past. And even if you can't help but obsess over those things, then you need to do something about it!"

Jun looked away and asked, "But… what can I possibly do now? I'm dead, aren't I?"

Asuka sighed, and said (sounding a little annoyed), "Jun, you're supposed to look at the person you're talking to!" Jun forced herself to look at Asuka's face, which now had on it a big, warm smile on it. "Well, if you can't do anything, than I guess that just means that I have to do something about it!"

Jun looked at her younger sibling incredulously. "What?"

Asuka let go of Jun's hands and cracked her knuckles, a mischievous grin on her face. "I've wanted to teach Jin a lessen ever since I first met him, and now that you've told me all about the Mishimas, it looks like I have more people I need to knock some sense into!" Asuka placed her hands on her hips, and smiled at Jun again. "So don't worry about it! I'll make sure to set them all straight, alright?"

* * *

Asuka's thoughts were interrupted by a small rock hitting her square in the head.

"What the -," Asuka thought, looking down at where her parents were hiding. Sure enough, her father had thrown that rock, in order to get his daughter's attention. By the looks of it, he was trying to mouth something to her.

"Asuka," he mouthed slowly, "what's going on up there?!"

"Yes!" her mother mouthed in agreement. "It sounds like there's a war going on up there!"

"Well," Asuka thought, "they're not too far off." She looked back at the action, hesitating to give her parents an answer.

Seeing their daughter's hesitation, Asuka's parents looked at each other, obviously worried. "Asuka," Asuka's father whispered, as loudly as he possibly could without being detected by the people they were hiding from, "what's going on up there?"

After a few seconds of being ignored, Asuka's mother whispered, "Honey?"

Asuka kept on staring at the battle in front of her. All the lasers, energy blasts, and weapon firing had stopped, and everyone and everything had gone to an old fashioned fist-fight. "If I'm going to stop them, then this is my only chance." Asuka gulped. "Well… it's now or never." She looked back to meet her parents' worried faces, and mouthed, "Sorry."

"'Sorry'? What do you mean by 'sorry'?!" Asuka's father whispered frantically.

Sudden realization hit Asuka's mother. "Dear… you don't think…."

Sudden realization hit her father. "She wouldn't…."

She did.

Asuka went for the three women first. As quickly as she could, she ran towards Alisa, and, with her strength, dented Alisa's jets and punched Alisa's head hard enough so that Alisa's head was no longer on straight anymore, and as quickly as she could, grabbed the disoriented girl's arm, threw her at Nina and Anna. The action was so quick and so sudden (plus the fact that someone new had entered the fray) shocked the two assassins enough that they didn't have time to react, and with the robot's body falling on top of them, it forced all the girls to fall backwards to the ground, the William's sisters' heads banging against it hard, dazing them for the moment.

Asuka then went for Lee, Lars, and Kuma. She rushed towards their fight, and with no warning whatsoever, hit a flying kick on the side of Kuma's head, forcing him to the side so that she could deal with Lars and Lee. Fast enough to react to what was going on at the moment, Lee tried to land an attack on her, only for her to reverse it, forcing him down and breaking his leg. As Lee screamed in pain, Lars rushed in to try his luck. As he was trying to land a blow on her head, Asuka got down low and hit him square in the face with a Thunder Fall Kick, and as he spun around, Asuka took the chance to hit Inner Strength on his ribs, pushing him hard into a rock, the impact so strong that the rock shattered. By this point, Kuma had come back into the fray and tried to attack her from behind, but Asuka was ready for this, and quickly dodged out of the way and quickly did what she needed to do. She went low and hit a hard kick at Kuma's leg, and as Kuma clutched his leg in pain, Asuka took the chance to hit a jumping high kick on Kuma's face, hitting Kuma on his jaw (the strength of the kick actually lifting Kuma off the ground a bit). He fell down, the kick apparently disorienting him. When Asuka landed back on the ground, she quickly surveyed her surroundings, and, finding Lee, ran up to him as fast as she could, and gave him a kick to the side of the head. Too dazed to hold onto his laptop, Asuka ripped it out of his now weak grasp.

Opening the laptop, and pushing the screen as far back as it could go, Asuka turned to Lee and said, "Sorry about this," before banging the laptop against her knee, splitting it in half. With nothing left controlling them, the Jack robots automatically shut-down, and as Asuka saw this, she let out a quick, relaxed sigh before getting back to business.

Running to Combot's decapitated body, Asuka grabbed the robot's body and whispered "Sorry, but I'm going to have to use your body right now," to the robot and with all her strength, threw the robot at Jinpachi and Heihachi, who had been watching her by this point.

Heihachi let out an arrogant laugh. "Ha! I don't know who you are, but if you think that some dead weight is enough to stop me, than you're poorly mistaken!" He looked at his father beside him. "Actually," he mumbled, "I think you might have just helped me out a bit." As Combot's body flew towards them, Heihachi surprisingly deflected the body with his fist alone, and, while it was still in midair, quickly grabbed it by its leg and tried to hit Jinpachi with it. Jinpachi, anticipating this, quickly leapt into the air to avoid the attack, but Heihachi, anticipating his anticipation, threw Combot's body towards the airborne Jinpachi, however only resulting in Jinpachi expertly kicking Combot's body back to the ground and towards Asuka. Asuka, anticipating all of this (to some degree), quickly did a baseball slid under the hunk of metal that would've hit her and rushed at the two, her fists balled up and letting out her best battle cry as Heihachi and Jinpachi (who had landed back on the ground) prepared to counter the oncoming assault. They had fully expected anything… except what happened next. With the act Asuka put up, the two had prepared for a fist fight, but instead, Asuka did another baseball slide at the last second and hit both of them with a low blow. The two slowly slumped to the ground, even gasping for air from the attack.

Asuka got up and dusted her clothes off to rid them of the dust and dirt that they had collected due to her two baseball slides. "Sorry about that," Asuka said, glancing at Jinpachi. "I don't like doing it either, but I felt like I shouldn't take any chances with you, you being considered one of the best martial artists in the world and all." She looked at Heihachi. "You, I'm not so sorry about. Besides, you survived an explosion, so my options were kinda limited."

Heihachi glared at her. "Impudent… little… brat," he wheezed.

Asuka shrugged lazily, not really giving Heihachi a second thought. She turned her attention to the two devils and Unknown, who were also focusing their complete, undivided attention on her. "Three to go," she whispered to herself. She took a deep breath, and finally made her move. Unfortunately for her though, Jin's move was faster than hers. Before she could fully realize what was going on, she felt a sudden, large amount of pain spread throughout her back and the back of her head, as her body was forcefully slammed to the ground by her neck.

As Asuka let out a sudden gasp of pain, Kazuya raised an eyebrow in both surprise and amusement at his son's actions. "Well, someone's certainly jumpy today."

Jin glared at Kazuya from the corner of his eye. "Shut up." He refocused his attention on Asuka, tightening the grip on her neck a little bit before asking, "Who are you?! And why are you here?!"

Asuka, instantly regaining her composure, answered confidently, "My name is Asuka Kazama! And I'm here to knock some sense into all of you!"

Unknown seemed to react to this. "Kazama?!" she thought. Everyone else had more or less the same reaction.

Kazuya and let out a small, skeptical laugh. "Oh? Is she now?"

Asuka looked at Kazuya. "Yeah old man, I am. As for why I'm here," she looked back at Jin, "let's just say that I'm a hardcore pacifist. Whenever there's a fight in front of me, I just can't help but stop it."

"Then you're just coming in blindly," Jin said. "You don't know a thing about us, and yet you're meddling in our affairs!"

"I know enough," she said. "Like how you don't like Mishimas. Am that right?"

"For the most part," Jin answered.

"Fair enough," Asuka said calmly. "Then why have you basically become one of them?"

Jin tightened his grip on her neck. "I've already heard this speech before."

"Yeah? Well too bad, because you're going to listen to it again, because it seems to me like you're not listening!" Asuka let out a sound of annoyance. "Tch. You're acting like a stubborn, misbehaving, hardened child! If I was your mother, I'd spank you!"

Jin tightened his grip even more. "Don't you dare bring my mother into this!"

"Really?" Asuka asked, putting her hands on Jin's transformed wrist, trying to fight out of his grasp, because as much as she hated to admit it, it was really starting to hurt, not to mention the fact that it was getting harder and harder to breath by the second. "Because how I see it, she's the only one you listen to!" Harder and harder to breath. "And heck, you can't even do that right!"

Jin tightened his grip. "What did you just say?!"

Getting so much harder to breath. "The spirit… of the Kazama style… is to stop conflict!"

"Stop conflict?" Jin thought. "That's just what… mother said."

Unbeknownst to the two (or anyone else in particular), Asuka's hand on Jin's wrist started to glow a little. Suddenly, Jin felt a sudden surge of pain spread throughout his entire body. Too much in pain to keep his hold on Asuka, Jin released her and let out a cry of pain, so loud that even Asuka's parents could hear it. As Jin cried out in pain, to everyone's shock, Jin's Devil Form was slowly, seemingly forcibly, starting to recede. When Jin was completely rid of all his Devil qualities, the pain stopped, and he looked at himself, shocked about what had happened.

Kazuya let out a sound of annoyance. "Tch. Still too weak willed to finish the job, are we?" He flew towards Asuka (who had slowly started getting herself back up) and slammed her against a giant tree, and again, by her neck. "Watch and learn!" Kazuya's eye started to glow. "THIS… is how it's done!"

Asuka had recovered just enough to say, "You know what?" She placed one of her hands on Kazuya's wrist, trying to power out of his chokehold. "I think you of all people desperately need a slap across the face!"

Kazuya grinned evilly. "Too bad you won't be able to do that after you're fried to a crisp." His eye was growing brighter and brighter. He was about to fire his laser.

Then Asuka slapped him, the force of the slap powerful enough to make him miss his target and fire his laser at no one in particular. Too shocked to say anything at the moment, Asuka instead decided to break the silence by saying, "Don't underestimate me, you meathead."

At first, Kazuya didn't do anything, but then he started laughing. "I'm actually starting to like you kid!" He was setting up his laser again. "It's a shame you're in the way."

Asuka tried to slap him again, but he had held her slapping hand with his other hand. Now it was just him with his laser eye and her using her other hand to desperately try to get out of his chokehold, because at this point it didn't look like another slap would save her this time, however it was enough time for what happened to Jin to happen to Kazuya. Just like Jin, Kazuya felt a sudden surge of pain, so strong that he couldn't hold on to her anymore and let go. Crying out loud enough for Asuka's parents to hear again, Kazuya's own Devil features were slowly and forcibly starting to recede, until finally, Kazuya was like Jin, back to normal.

Hearing all those screams of pain, Asuka's parents felt uneasy. "What the heck," Asuka's father said, "I'm going to see what's going on up there."

"No you're not," Asuka's mother said, gently holding on to her husband's hand, "not without me."

The two of them smiled at each other, and, as quietly as they could, went up to see what was going on. After finding an appropriate hiding spot for them, the two set their eyes on the spectacle before them, gawking at what they saw.

Kazuya looked at his now normal hands, not believing what he was seeing. "W-What just happened?!" He glared at Asuka. "What did you do!?"

Asuka, recovering from nearly suffocating to death, slowly got back up to her feet, and answered, "How the heck should I know?!"

Jin glared at Asuka and asked, "Asuka Kazama… who are you?!" He started walking up to her. "You're not a normal woman, are you?!"

Asuka was starting to get annoyed by all of these questions. "I'm an Osaka woman! What?! Are you saying that I had something to do with you guys turning back to normal or something, because for all I know, you guys did it all by yourselves!"

"Don't play dumb with me!" Jin cried. "What have you got to do with the Devil Gene?!"

Unknown, again, seemed to react to this. "She has something to do with the Devil Gene? One of the things that's tearing this family apart?!" she thought.

"I have nothing to do with the Devil Gene!" She scratched her head furiously. "Geez, why are you all making this so complicated?!"

Without any warning whatsoever, Unknown rushed towards Asuka, kicking a surprised Jin and Kazuya aside. As Kazuya fell to the ground, he glanced at Jinpachi and cried, "Hey! What's up with her, huh?!"

Jinpachi, slowly recovering from the low blow, answered, "Jun's negative emotions and the evil goop on her body have created what you all call Unknown, a creature who will do anything to wipe out this family and anything related to them, to set Jun's fears and doubts at ease!" He looked at Jin. "Because of what Jin said about Asuka Kazama and how she could possibly be related to all of us, Jun has found a good enough reason to destroy her!"

Asuka's parents looked on in horror from their hiding place. "Destroy her?!" they thought hysterically.

Asuka looked up as Unknown leapt into the air, intending to attack her from above. As Unknown was about to attack her, everything to Asuka seemed to go in slow motion. She looked at Unknown's face. She could have sworn that she saw a tinge of sadness in Unknown's eyes. "Fears and doubts, huh?" Asuka thought quietly to herself.

She then remembered what Jun had asked of her.

* * *

For a long time, Jun stared at Asuka, surprised and amazed by the girl's words. Then she let out a little laugh, and gave Asuka a small smile. "And this, Asuka, is why you've been given this prophecy."

Asuka looked confused. "Hm? What do you mean?" she asked.

Jun suddenly took a step backwards, away from Asuka. Taken aback by Jun's sudden action, Asuka looked at Jun and asked, "Jun?"

Jun smiled. As time went on, Jun, without taking any more steps back, started to drift away from her, and Asuka saw that Jun's body was beginning to fade away. "Jin and I… we both dreamed of a peaceful world. Asuka Kazama, I know that you have a strong sense of justice, and I know that you just promised to help my son and the Mishimas… but can I ask you to do… one more favor for me?"

Asuka tried to follow Jun's apparition, but found that her feet were somehow planted to the floor. "What is it?" she cried.

"Can you," Jun asked, her voice turning into what sounded like a distant echo, "inherit our dream?"

"Inherit your dream?" Asuka repeated to herself, as Jun's apparition disappeared.

"Asuka!" a voice (seemingly coming from everywhere) cried.

Asuka looked around frantically. "Huh?"

"Asuka, wake up!" And that's just what Asuka did.

* * *

"Inherit your dream, huh?" Asuka smiled to herself. "How can I do that… if I've already had that dream in the first place?" She was preparing to counter Unknown. "Justice and peace, I think, go hand in hand." A surprised look appeared on Unknown's face, as well as everyone else's. "Don't you think… Jun?"

Asuka had ducked from Unknown's midair assault and, with a sudden, quick motion, grabbed Unknown's face and stepped forward. "Don't worry Jun!" Asuka thought. "You're dream is still alive…," she forced Unknown's head backward as she moved forward, "in me!"

She slammed the back of Unknown's head to the ground. As the move was being performed, a light from Asuka's hand glowed again, and although the light from Asuka's hand disappeared as quickly as it appeared, light was beginning to envelop Unknown's body. The moment Unknown hit the ground, instead of staying on the ground, a puddle of light appeared under her, and she sank down into its depths, the puddle of light quickly vanishing after Unknown disappeared in it.

* * *

Unknown sank deeper and deeper in the depths the puddle of light had taken her. From the looks of it, it looked like she had fallen into the ocean, but unlike the ocean, the water was warm and… comforting. As she slowly sank deeper and deeper, she suddenly saw a warm, beautiful light coming from above. As the brightness of the light slowly diminished, Unknown could see that it wasn't just any light, it was Angel, smiling down at her and reaching out her hand to her. When Angel finally touched Unknown's hand, light enveloped Unknown's body once again, but this time, it had another effect on her. Slowly, but surely, the evil goop was coming off of her body, releasing her from their curse.

"It's okay now Jun!" Angel seemed to say, as she slowly ascended away from view. Despite the fact that her lips weren't moving, Unknown heard her just words just fine. "You don't have to worry anymore! You can move on now!" Both Angel and her voice seemed to fade away, leaving Jun alone as she sank deeper and deeper into the abyss.

"Move on, huh?" Jun asked herself, blinking once. "If this is my fate… then so be it." She closed her eyes and relaxed, welcoming her fate, whatever it may be. "The rest… is up to you… Asuka Kazama."

* * *

No one could believe their eyes. "That girl… could defeat Unknown… in one blow?!" Jinpachi cried, astounded.

"Then it's settled," Jin muttered. "She isn't a normal woman after all."

"That type of power," Kazuya said, smiling, "could prove quite useful."

"Not if I get it first," Heihachi said, under his breath.

"Is she a friend or a foe?" Lars asked himself.

"Who cares? She's just more competition," Lee muttered.

Asuka couldn't take it anymore. "All of you need to shut your traps RIGHT NOW!" she cried.

Nina, Anna, and Kuma all flinched. "A little loud, isn't she?" Nina commented.

"Hmm, she's got all the right _features_… but her attitude needs work," Anna joked.

"Geez, women yelling is a whole different story, isn't it?" Kuma thought as he slowly tried to inch himself away from the girl.

Alisa finally put her head back on straight again and was now looking at Asuka, her head slightly tilting to the side. "Asuka Kazama? Hmm." She thought for a moment. "I do not recall meeting her before, though I do recall seeing her once before." She thought a little bit harder. "Was it that time when I was with Panda, Xiaoyu and Miharu?"

Heihachi wasn't about to sit back and let this girl order him around. "And why should we take orders from you, huh?!"

Asuka looked at him, and said accusingly, "You all listened to what everyone else had to say, right?"

"Yeah, so?!"

"So…," Asuka looking back at everyone, "now it's my turn to monologue."

Heihachi was about to argue that this whole thing was none of her business to begin with, but before he could say anything, Jinpachi stepped forward. "You have a point there Mrs. Kazama. You may have your say in the matter." Heihachi looked like he was about to protest, but seeing that everyone else was letting Asuka speak, Heihachi grudgingly complied.

Seeing that everyone was going to hear her out, Asuka took a moment to think about what she was going to say. These guys were a time-bomb just waiting to go off. She would have to do this carefully, or else things were going to get ugly real fast.

After Asuka formed her game plan (or at least a part of it), she took a deep breath and looked firmly at the people before her and said, "No offense, but… what you're all doing right now, is definitely wrong!"

Anna let out a little laugh. "Thank you Captain Obvious," she muttered sarcastically.

Asuka pointed a disapproving finger at her. "It's not nice to call people names, and it's rude to talk while they're talking."

Anna frowned. "Who does she think she is, our mother?" she whispered to Nina.

Nina shrugged her question off. "Please, if anyone needed a scolding, it'd be you."

"Hey!" Asuka shouted. "Don't talk while I'm talking!" She shook her head. "Honestly, you'd think assassins would have a little bit more class!"

"…Obnoxious, little brat," Nina and Anna thought. They kept quiet after that though.

Seeing that the two finally weren't going to cause her any more problems, Asuka sighed, regained her thoughts, and continued, "It's not just the fact that you guys were trying to kill each other, or the fact that you're all doing it in a cemetery (seriously though, that's pretty messed up!), but I heard everything you guys said, and honestly, I can think up one thing you all did wrong individually!" She turned to Lars. "Let's start with you first!"

Lars, a little bit taken aback, pointed at himself, his eyes wide with surprise. "Me?!"

Asuka nodded and started walking confidently towards him. "Yeah!" Once she stood right in front of him and looked him in the eye, she continued with her lecture. "You don't like anyone here, right?"

Lars nodded carefully. "You can say that," he answered.

Asuka let out a little huff. "Then why are you so ready to sink to their level?!"

Lars shook his head sadly. "It's… more complicated than that."

Asuka sighed. "Maybe you're right. Maybe it is more complicated than that… but I can think of one thing that shouldn't be so complicated."

"Huh?" Lars asked, obviously wondering where Asuka was going with this. "What is it?" he asked.

Asuka crossed her arms, and asked, "Why were you so prepared to kill yourself?!"

Lars, slightly taken aback by the question, didn't answer immediately, but once he regained his composure, he answered, "Well… the circumstances were pretty serious, so we needed a serious back-up plan…."

"But that's wrong!"

"But if we don't stop them now," Lars argued angrily, "then more bad things will happen!"

"That's not what I meant!"

Lars gasped, taken aback by her statement. "…What?"

Asuka let out another huff, this one sounding a little bit more annoyed than the other one. "Did you already forget?"

Lars obviously did. "Forget what?"

Asuka placed her hands on her hips. "That your life is not your own anymore?"

Lars then was hit with a sudden realization. "Those are Tougou's words."

Asuka nodded, a soft smile appearing on her face. "Yeah," she sadly looked at the dead bodies of the Tekken Force members, "they are." She then turned back to Lars. "Tougou and the rest of the Tekken Force members all came with you on this mission to bring everyone in, didn't they?"

Lars nodded. "Y-yeah."

"And they protected you, didn't they?"

Lars nodded again. "Yes."

Asuka crossed her arms again. "Then wouldn't it be disrespectful of you to sacrifice your life, the life that they put so much effort to save, just for the sake of completing a mission that wasn't even the mission they sacrificed themselves to complete in the first place?"

Lars stared at her, amazed, before finally shaking his head and saying, "Yeah… yeah it would."

Asuka smiled. "Like Tougou said, your life isn't your own anymore. You're going to have to take that into consideration from now on, alright?!"

A small smile appeared on Lars's face. "Yeah," he said, giving her a little nod, "I'll keep that in mind." He gave her a little bow of respect. "Thank you for reminding me, Asuka Kazama."

"Ah well," Asuka said, a little blush appearing on her face, scratching the back of her head bashfully, "it's no big deal."

"Asuka Kazama!" Alisa cried, running up to the two of them. When she finally reached the two, Alisa looked at Asuka excitedly. It looked like she was expecting Asuka to do something.

Asuka raised an eyebrow at her. "What is it?"

Alisa clapped her hands together, smiled, and asked innocently, "What do you have to say to me?"

"Wait… what?"

Alisa nodded. "It is custom for people to be scolded, at least once in their lives." She played with her fingers bashfully. "And I am sorry to say that I have yet to be a victim of the experience." She looked at Asuka happily. "So please, Ms. Kazama, give me my first scolding!"

Asuka, a little freaked out at the moment, didn't say anything at first (usually no one demanded her to scold them, so this was quite a shock), but then said, "W-well," she thought for a moment, "remember what Tougou said to you too! You know, that you're supposed to be taking care of Lars for them!"

Alisa nodded happily. "Yes! My apologies! I was so emotional that I forgot the promise I made to one of my friends!" She bowed respectfully and happily to her, "Thank you Asuka Kazama! I will never forget what you taught me today! I will cherish this scolding for as long as I live!"

"W-well… as long as you've learned your lesson."

Alisa nodded again. "Yes I did!"

Asuka nodded slowly and, sensing that her work was done with those two, looked at the others around her. After a moment to think it through, she decided to confront Lee next.

She walked up to Lee, who was still struggling to get himself back up on his feet after what Asuka did to one of them. "Do you need any help?" Asuka asked.

Lee glared at her. "First you break my leg, and then you offer me help." He shook his head. "You make no sense."

"Well excuse me for asking!" She shook her head. "That's not something you say to a person who's offering you help you ya' know!" After a few seconds of Lee not saying anything, Asuka let out a small sigh, put one of Lee's arms around her shoulders, hoisted him up to his feet, and helped him towards a rock, which he sat on. "See? That wasn't so hard, now was it?"

After a few seconds of not saying anything, Lee quietly muttered (without even looking at Asuka), "Thank you."

Asuka grinned, waving it off. "Ah, it was nothing." She took a seat beside him. "Now," she moved around a little bit, to try and get comfortable, "do I need to help you talk too?"

Lee grumbled loudly. "What do you want to talk about?" he asked.

"You."

This seemed to get Lee's attention a little bit. He sat up a little straighter, but he still didn't make any eye contact with her. "What about me?"

"Well," Asuka began, "let's start with the fact that you don't appreciate what you already have."

Lee shook his head, grumbling, "What I have is nothing compared to what I rightfully deserve."

"Yeah, yeah," Asuka said, rolling her eyes and making annoyed gestures with her hands. "And whenever we finally catch psychotic killers they sometimes JUST go to jail for the rest of their lives." She looked at Lee. "No one ever really gets what they deserve, whether it's a punishment or a reward, but the way I see it, you think that your reward IS your punishment!"

"Why wouldn't I think that?!" Lee asked. He pointed at Heihachi. "That man filled my head with dreams and fantasies that were doomed to never come true!" Lee shook his head in dismay. "I was more qualified than Kazuya ever was to run that conglomerate! I had the skills and unlike him, I had the drive!" He looked at Kazuya. "Admit it Kazuya, you never wanted the company in the first place!" He clenched one of his fists in rage. "Someone like him, taking something so precious away from me?!" He turned to Asuka. "What type of sick joke is that?!"

They kept staring at each other for about a minute, before Asuka's expression softened a bit, and she quietly said, "You know what? I get it."

Lee's expression softened as well. "What?"

Asuka nodded, looking straight in front of them, at nothing in particular. "Yeah." She brushed a lock of her hair. "In high school, there were these elections, you know, for student body president and everything, and I was like 'Hmm. Maybe I should run for it. Yeah! I'd totally whip this school into shape!'" Asuka smiled at the memory. "And that's what I dreamed about all the time back then. Just being student body president. I worked hard for it too! Making posters, going to all of these debates, going to all of these school events, listening to everyone's complaints about the school, working with the school's staff, I did it all, and I did it as best I could." Asuka then began to fidget a little bit, a light blush appearing across her face. "But even after all that, I didn't make the cut. Someone else got it instead."

Lee had stopped caring at this point. "I'm sorry but...," he paused dramatically, "how does that measure up to my dreams, and my desires?" he asked. "I mean, comparing a powerful conglomerate to a position as student body president -" Asuka hit him hard on his arm. "Ow!"

"It's not polite to interrupt!" Asuka cried. "And I was just about to explain all that anyway!" She then turned a complete 180 and resumed sharing with him her sentimental memory. "Anyway, as I was saying, I didn't win the election, but after a day of feeling sorry for myself, I realized something." She turned to Lee. "When I _really_ thought about it, I realized that I wasn't really cut out for the student body president thing. I didn't really like doing all that work, idly listening to everyone's problems, or taking so much time out of my schedule." She shook her head. "No, I realize now that I'm more of the fun-loving gal that just likes to help people on her own time."

Lee let out an exasperated sigh. "So?"

"So," Asuka said, "what I'm trying to tell you is that sometimes, every once in a while, our dreams can be thwarted in a good way. My dream was to be student body president, but that didn't happen, but then I realized that maybe it was all for the better and I even got to learn a little bit more about myself in the process. I'm saying that maybe that's happening to you right now, you just don't realize it yet."

Lee thought for a moment. "Would you care to elaborate?"

"Well…," Asuka thought for a moment, "your dream was to be the head of the Mishima Financial Group, right?" Lee nodded. "And you still want to get it after all these years, right?" Lee nodded again. "Well, after all the conglomerate's been through these past few years… do you really want it?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well… its reputation is… pretty much sunk, especially after the war these guys created," Asuka said, pointing at Jin and Kazuya. "Do you honestly want to inherit it with the reputation it has today?"

Lee didn't say anything for a while, just staring into space and immersing himself in his thoughts. "Well… yes."

"Really?" Asuka asked, leaning forward a little. "Are you sure there wasn't more to your dream than that?"

Lee shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "I guess… a bit of it was just the principle of it."

Asuka smiled a little bit. They were making progress. "Can you elaborate on that?" She then added a little, "Please?"

Lee thought about it again. "Well… back when I was poor and living on the streets, I heard a lot of people saying that I couldn't make it in this world, that I didn't have a prayer, that there was no hope for me. Then Heihachi came into my life, and offered me the chance of a lifetime, to run a powerful conglomerate." Lee shook his head and shrugged. "I didn't want the chance to go to waste. I wanted to prove to everybody who said to me that I couldn't make it, that I COULD make it, and that I did have the skills and tools needed to succeed in this world, to be successful in this world. That I could make this big, world-famous, powerful, well-known conglomerate, and make it even better than it was before." Sadness was now evident on his face. "But that never happened. I never did become the head of the Mishima Financial Group."

"No," Asuka said, "you got something better! You got yourself your own very company!"

Lee looked at her, shocked. Then he smiled, letting out a little laugh as he took out his sunglasses, pretending to clean them. "Yes… yes I did."

"And by the looks of your clothes," Asuka said, gesturing towards Lee's expensive sunglasses, and silk clothing, "it's become very successful in its own right!"

Lee looked at his clothes again and said, "Yes. I guess you can say that."

"Not just that," Asuka said, standing up and walking to Combot's body, which had landed right in front of the Williams Sisters.

"We could kill her right now you know," Anna whispered to Nina.

"I heard that," Asuka said loudly, as she hoisted Combot's body onto her back.

"Careful," Nina said sarcastically, "she heard you."

Asuka rolled her eyes and searched for Combot's head. After finding it and picking it up, she walked up to Lee, with all of Combot's parts with her. She then handed Lee Combot's head and placed Combot's body against the rock Lee was sitting on. She then resumed where she had left off. "Not just that," she said, "but by the way you were bragging about Combot, you really do love what you do."

Lee looked affectionately at his destroyed robot's body and head. "Yes… yes I do."

"Then why did you want this particular thing so much?" Asuka asked.

Lee sighed. "In spite of everyone who got in my way I guess." He shook his head. "I never really did like Kazuya and Heihachi, and once Jin took over the company, I started hating him too." He shook his head, rubbing his fingers against his temples dramatically. "What can I say? They're just so easy to hate."

Asuka crossed her arms, nodding in agreement. "No arguments here!" She then got serious again. "But don't you think it's about time you moved on from that?" She once again took her seat next to Lee. "If you have the ability, and if you devoted more of your time and attention to it, you could probably make Violet Systems an even bigger and better conglomerate than the Mishima Financial Group ever was!"

Lee took a moment to absorb what she had said, smiled, and let out a little laugh. "Build a better conglomerate than the one Heihachi offered me and the one Kazuya and Jin stole from me? Hmm. Yes. That does sound quite," he looked to Asuka, "excellent." He then let out what could have easily been considered an evil laugh.

Asuka laughed awkwardly next to him, trying to scooch away from him as much as possible. He may have been a better man than Jin, Kazuya and Heihachi, but there was still something about this guy that still freaked her out. Maybe it was how flamboyant he was.

He stopped laughing, stood up, displayed a calm persona, and looked at Asuka, a big smile on his face. "Thank you, Miss Kazama! From this day forth, Violent Systems will strive to be the best conglomerate in the world," he snuck in a small sneer to his 'family members', "even better than the Mishima Financial Group ever was!" He turned to his relatives and said dramatically, "Remember this! The era of the Mishima Financial Group is over!" He pointed up to the sky. "Starting now, it is the era, of Violet Systems!" He then again let out an 'evil' laugh.

"He still seems to be holding a grudge," Asuka thought, standing up and backing away from him, "but at least this is a start, so I guess I'll end it at that for now." She surveyed the people in front of her, trying to decide which one she would confront next. "I guess I'll go for…." She approached Jinpachi Mishima, who had been eyeing her fondly ever since she talked to Lars.

Jinpachi raised his hand up to stop her from saying anything. "Let me guess, you're going to say that I used to be a good man, but due to recent events, I've lost my way?"

Asuka thought for a moment. "Well… pretty much!" She angrily placed her hands on her hips, and added, "But seriously though, even though everyone loses their way every once in a while, you'd think an elder would lose it a little bit less than usual!" She shook her head. "Honestly, this whole act of yours feels like something an idiot teenager would come up with! Coming back from the dead, making a deal with an evil entity, gaining questionable power from wherever you came from," she shook her head again, "it's impulsive and stupid!"

Jinpachi shook his head gravely. "Than what was I supposed to do? Sit idly by while all these things were happening right in front of me? No, I just couldn't, in good faith, stay dead," he looked to Asuka, a sad expression on his face, "so I took it upon myself to put an end to it all."

Asuka let out an angry huff. "Old man, stop babbling for a moment and just listen for once!" Jinpachi obeyed. Asuka smiled. "Thank you." She then eased her tone a bit. "I get that kids like me should always listen to our parents and all that, but what parents have to realize is that at one point or another, you're not going to be staying around to make our decisions for us!" She folded her arms, annoyed. "You died a long time ago, and you said that you wanted to take it upon yourself, the responsibility of taking care of some problems in the land of the living?!"

"W-well, yes."

"So what, you don't trust us or something?!" Seeing Jinpachi's shocked expression, Asuka, annoyed by Jinpachi's failure to understand her point by now, let out an exasperated sigh. "We're not as weak and helpless as you think we are," she said. "And someone as old as you must realize more than someone as young as me that nothing lasts forever, whether good or bad. I get it. Your family's treachery is something that has to be stopped… but you've got to trust us to stop it on our own! And even if we can't stop it on our own, it's not going to last forever!" She calmed down a bit and smiled, lightly punching Jinpachi on his arm. "Come on gramps! Have a little bit more faith in the younger generation!"

Jinpachi stared at the girl in front of him in wonder for a couple of seconds before finally nodding solemnly, a small smile forming on his face, letting out a small laugh and saying, "To think that I would come all the way from Hell, only to be humbled by an…," Jinpachi thought for a moment, "interesting young woman!" He gave her a short bow of respect. "You are right, Asuka Kazama. My legacy ended long ago, it's about time I accepted that and let another legacy take its place. Who knows? Maybe the next one will be bigger and brighter than mine ever was." He winked at her. "Right?"

Asuka looked away, acting like she didn't know what he was talking about. "Who knows?" she said.

"Finally!" Asuka and Jinpachi turned to see Heihachi with an arrogant grin on his face. "The old man finally acknowledges the fact that his legacy has long been dead and buried!" He turned to Lee. "You were right you know! A new era is about to start, but not the era of your pitiful excuse for a company, but mine, the era of Heihachi Mishima!" The said man then laughed triumphantly as if he had already achieved what he just said he would do.

Jinpachi clench his fist, and growled, "Heihachi…."

Asuka then yanked his ear, producing a comical scream of pain from the old man. "Hey, you didn't forget what you just said a few seconds ago," she looked at him in the eye, a stern look on her face, as if threatening him to deny it, "did you?"

Jinpachi shook his head. "No, no, you're right, I'll sit this one out," he said quickly, and caressed his ear after Asuka, with a smug grin, graciously let it go.

"Good," Asuka said, dusting off her hands, "now that we got that out of the way," she looked firmly at the now frowning and arm crossed Heihachi, "time to get back to work." She walked up to the old man (who still looked pretty young due to whatever he drank from that bottle from before).

"Oh please," Heihachi scoffed. "What are you going to say to me that I haven't heard a thousand times before?"

"Oh, so this isn't the first time people have called you out for being a jerk?!" Asuka asked.

"You can say that again." Heihachi sighed. "It's always the same old thing. 'Oh Heihachi, don't you have any business morals?' or 'Heihachi, don't you heart?' or "You're a monster Heihachi!'." Heihachi shook his head and waved off all those comments he just impersonated. "Just do me a favor," he said, "if you're going to try and lecture me and completely fail at it, at least lecture me on something that I've never been chewed out on before!"

"Stubborn old man!" Asuka cried. "All those things are exactly what's wrong with you! Of course you'd hear them over and over again!" She let out an annoyed huff and folded her arms. "It looks like you've already heard everything you needed to hear, the only problem is that you just don't listen to it or take any of it to heart!" Asuka muttered. "And since you've heard them all before I can't exactly lecture you about anything new either!" She glared at Heihachi. "Well do you at least have anything to say for yourself?!"

Heihachi shrugged nonchalantly. "I'm a self-made man who just happens to be a very disciplined businessman, who has accepted the cruel, harsh, never-ending truths of the world for what they are, and understand what's important in that said world."

Asuka sighed, angrily rubbing her temples. "You're completely hopeless," she said.

Heihachi grinned triumphantly. "Oh? Have I won already?"

Asuka stopped and glared at him. "That's now what I said!" She then thought for a moment. "You want to be the ultimate life-form, right?"

"Tch. Yeah, so?"

"So basically, you want to be immortal and run the company forever."

Heihachi was growing tired of all this talking. "Yeah, so what?"

Asuka folded her arms, "Why?"

Heihachi looked at her long and hard. "That doesn't concern you."

"We'll worry about whether it concerns me or not AFTER you answer my question."

Heihachi glared at her. "That's classified information."

Asuka looked at him like he was crazy. "Same reasoning." When it didn't look like Heihachi was going to relent, Asuka sighed, and said, "If you don't tell me then I'll just have to assume that there isn't a reason at all and just repeat the same accusations you've already heard a thousand times before."

"Alright, alright!" Heihachi cried, raising his hands up in protest. Seeing Kuma's confused and baffled expression, Heihachi shrugged, and said, "What? Hearing the same thing over and over again gets old and annoying REAL fast." Despite the fact that he said he was going to commit to telling her, Heihachi still looked uncomfortable doing it. He rubbed the back of his neck, shook his head, didn't look Asuka in the eye, everything you would have imagined coming from someone who obviously didn't want to divulge anything, but had to anyway.

Finally, he looked up at the sky, took a deep breath, and said, "To last."

Asuka, confused by his response, asked, "What do you mean by that?"

Heihachi took another deep breath. He looked at his right hand. "Look at me." And that's what everyone did. Slowly, but surely, Heihachi's young appearance was slowly disappearing. In a matter of seconds, his body reverted back to its true appearance: old, wrinkled, gray-haired, and balding.

Even after the de-transformation, Heihachi still looked long and hard at his hand. "I hate to admit it, but… I'm growing old." He looked at Asuka. "One day, I'll die, and despite all of the things I've done, despite all of my achievements, despite all of my attempts to make everyone know my name and remember me," he shook his head, "after a few years I'll be forgotten, just another name inside a history book that ungrateful children simply memorize for one test and then completely forget about the next day." He looked at her in the eye. "Not to mention the fact that when I die, someone will have to take over the company for me, and with my luck," he glanced at Kazuya, "I'll probably get an heir that will destroy everything I've worked so hard to build up. No. Why go through all of that, why build myself up to wonder if someone will wreck it all in a day, when I can simply live forever and run the company the way I want it?!" He grinned. "And with me living forever, no one will ever forget the name, Heihachi Mishima! Not in a million years! Not even in more than that!"

Asuka, to everyone's surprise, flicked Heihachi with her finger right between his eyes. "Idiot! Didn't you listen to what I said to your father?! Nothing lasts forever, even when you're alive the things that you want to stay don't stay and the things you don't want to stay never seem to go away, but no matter what, they'll end eventually! It doesn't matter how hard you try to keep the company the way you want it! Eventually, you'll either lose your spark and destroy the company yourself or someone will dethrone you for life and run it their own way!"

Heihachi looked away, obviously thinking this girl was babbling nonsense. "I'll take my chances!" he said, waving away her remarks.

"And what's so bad about putting your trust in others?!" she demanded.

"I'll tell you what!" Heihachi said. "It's because no matter how much you trust someone, whenever you ask them to do something for you it's always going to be a gamble! No matter how much they promise they'll do their best, no matter how much they try to reassure you that it's going to be okay, in the end, they just don't care as much as you do about it! The best person to do the job that you want them to do, the way you want them to do it, is yourself, and that's exactly what I'm doing and what I'm going to do for the rest of my life! I'll become the ultimate life-form and do what I want MY way! My greatness will reach new heights and my memory will live on forever, just like me!"

Asuka looked at the old man long and hard before angrily flicking Heihachi between the eyes again. "Idiot! How can anyone have memories about you when you're still there?!" She sighed. "You're right about one thing though, if people want things done the right way, they need to do it themselves."

After his initial shock at her response to his philosophy, Heihachi let out a loud, triumphant laugh and said, "Well, looks like someone finally sees it my way!"

Asuka, annoyed, and obviously not finished yet, held up her finger to silence him. "But… even you have to admit that no one can do everything by themselves."

Heihachi nodded. "Of course, you need workers!"

"Yeah, you need workers, workers you can TRUST! See?! You at least trust them, right?!"

"Of course not!" Heihachi cried. "You never know when one's an assassin sent by one of my business rivals to get rid of me!"

"But you need to trust someone!"

"I've already told you, the only person I trust is myself!"

"Oh really?!" Asuka angrily pointed at Kuma, who was simply watching the two, not minding the fact that he wasn't a part of the conversation. "And what about him?!"

Heihachi, was slightly taken aback by this question. "What about him?!"

"What is he to you?!" Asuka cried.

"Well… he's my bodyguard."

"So he guards your life, right?!"

"Of course!"

"So basically, you trust him enough to protect you and follow you on important stuff like this, right?!"

"Well…," Heihachi looked at Kuma, who was patiently waiting for his answer. "I… guess."

"And you must trust him with a lot of other things, right?!"

Heihachi nodded. "For the most part," he muttered.

"So how can you say you can't trust anyone?!"

For once, Heihachi was left speechless. "Ah… well… you see…." He couldn't really think up an argument.

Seeing that he was relenting (thought just a little bit), Asuka calmed herself down a bit. "Don't you think it's nice that you at least have ONE person, or um, bear that you can confide with, someone that you can trust?!"

"Well, he's… reliable… I guess."

"Geez, he's still so stubborn," Asuka thought. She shrugged. "Oh well, take what you can get."

"See?! It's not so bad, putting your trust in others! Heck, you've already been doing it!" She looked at Kuma. "Yeah sure, maybe after you're dead he might not be the best choice to take your place as head of a powerful conglomerate, but at the very least he at least knows what you want and how you want things done. And even if he comes to the conclusion that he can't do it, he'll just search for someone just like you and make HIM the head of the company!" She looked at Heihachi. "See? You don't have to be the ultimate life-form or an immortal, you can just make a will and live on as a memory, the memory of the most ambitious business man the world has ever seen!"

Heihachi looked at Kuma, his expression softening a bit. He then eyed Asuka suspiciously. "You're okay with me being that type of person?" he asked.

Asuka waved him off. "You're as heck not going to change, take what I can get and leave it at that." She then smiled. "Now…," she took Heihachi hand and started dragging him towards Kuma. Heihachi tried to pry her off, but found that she had one heck of a grip. She finally let go when Heihachi and Kuma were standing directly in front of each other. Asuka looked at the two, a smile still on her face, and said cheerfully, "Now… how about you guys show each other how much you trust each other by shaking hands as equals?" She looked at the two, as if expecting both of them to do it in a heartbeat.

The two looked awkwardly at each other. "What type of corny nonsense is this?" Heihachi wondered.

"This is a little bit too weird for me," Kuma thought. "Maybe I can get out of it if I say that bears can't handshake."

Just as Kuma was about to protest in his own weird way, Asuka stopped him. "Come on!" she said. "Don't give me the 'bears don't handshake' excuse!"

"How did she know?!" Kuma thought.

"Come on now! It isn't that hard!" Asuka encouraged, grabbing both of their hands and bringing them together herself. "Now… shake!" Heihachi and Kuma nervously looked at each other before finally giving each other an awkward hand shake. Asuka smiled. "See? Nothing to it!" She looked at the two of them. "Now, doesn't that feel good?"

Kuma looked at Heihachi bashfully. "So, does this really mean we're… equals?" he growled.

Heihachi shrugged, and, without looking Kuma in the eye, answered, "Well… you've already got a once-in-a-lifetime position, being my bodyguard and all."

"What type of answer is that?!"

"Well, coming from me, that's certainly something!"

"I guess…." Kuma murmured.

Asuka smiled at the two. "These two could definitely be cute if they wanted to be!" she thought.  
"Ah well, looks like my work here is done, or at least as done as it CAN be." She looked at Kazuya. "I think I'll go for that one next."

As Kazuya saw that she was approaching him next, he couldn't help but smirk. "Oh, so she's going to try and convert me now, huh?" he thought. "Fine then, let's see her try."

Once Asuka was standing right in front of him, she took a deep breath and looked him over. "Come on, do your worst," Kazuya thought, his smirk slowly turning into an evil grin, "I dare you."

Asuka bowed deeply. "Thank goodness!" she cried.

Everyone was taken aback by this, Kazuya most of all. "W-what?" he mumbled.

"Well," Asuka said slowly, "you've fallen down both a ravine and a volcano, but looking at you, it seems like it wasn't as bad as it obviously could have been!" Asuka let out a loud sigh of relief. "That's a relief, isn't it?!" she said loudly.

Kazuya eyed her suspiciously. "How do you know that about me?" he asked.

Asuka waved off the question. "I have my ways."

"That… doesn't really answer my question."

"Well you're not getting any more of an answer than that!"

For once, Kazuya didn't know what to do. He just stared bewilderingly at the girl before him, the girl that, for some reason or another, he couldn't comprehend. "Nothing about this girl makes sense!" Kazuya thought. "She berates everyone else, but when it comes to me, she's… nice?! And considering the fact that, next to my father, I'm admittedly the pinnacle of sin, it makes even less sense!" He looked her over, trying to figure her out. No luck. It just didn't make any sense to him. "It has to be a trick," he thought. "It just has to be."

"So… you're okay with a guy like me… being alright?"

"Well it's not like I want anyone to die or get horribly disfigured or anything!"

"But me personally… you're okay with me being okay?"

Asuka scratched the side of her nose. "Well…," she looked up at Kazuya and smiled. It wasn't really a happy smile, but more of a mixture between a sad smile and a smile of relief. "You weren't always so bad, were you?" She placed a soft hand on Kazuya's shoulder and patted it. She patted it like the way a friend would pat one's shoulder, out of encouragement or to comfort or reassure. "If you really tried, you could probably be good again in a heartbeat," Asuka said softly. She let out a small laugh. "Man, if the boys in my neighborhood could see me now. Their jaws would probably fall off or something! I never say stuff like this to people like you, especially with all the stuff you've done! But then again, I guess you can say that you're a bit of a special case." She thought for a moment, and added, "And I think you're still a special case to someone else too," she then looked at Jun's grave, and Kazuya followed her gaze.

"Wait a minute," Kazuya thought, putting two and two together. He looked at Asuka in both confusion and amazement. "How much does this girl know about me?!"

Asuka turned around and started walking towards Jin, but while she was making her way to him, she added (turning around to look at Kazuya again, while walking backwards towards Jin), "I'm not too thrilled with what you've done in the past, but I will say this: You can't be good if you're dead, ya' know?! So stay alive until then, alright?!" She then turned around again, leaving a bewildered Kazuya behind to try and understand what just happened.

Asuka now focused her attention on, who might be the toughest case yet, Jin Kazama, who had been glaring at her since the beginning. This was going to be a tough nut to crack, but that wasn't going to stop her. It never stopped her before, and it certainly won't stop her now, and besides, she DID promise Jun after all.

When she finally stood directly in front of Jin she didn't immediately say anything. They just glared at each other, Kazuya expecting something from her and Asuka trying to decide what she was going to do with this particular case. It went on for so long that Jin was, to the surprise of everyone else watching them, the first one to speak.

"Well?" Jin asked.

"Don't rush me!" Asuka said. "These things take time ya' know!" She thought about it for a couple more seconds. "Alright, I think I got it."

"Finally," Jin muttered under his breath.

"Okay," Asuka said, casually dusting off, patting and straightening out her clothes before calmly looking at Jin, giving him a smile… and slapping him across the face.

Although his eyes widened after the impact of the palm of her hand hitting the side of his face, Jin almost immediately regained his calm demeanor and calmly asked, "What was that all about?"

Asuka clenched her fist, and said, "That was me slapping some sense into you." She placed her hands on her hips. "Do you know why I just slapped you and didn't punch?" Asuka asked. Jin didn't answer. "It's because punches are for stopping fights between grown-ups. Slaps are for brats. Which is what you are!"

Jin glared at her with such intensity that Asuka couldn't help but feel a little uneasy. It was like he was trying to peer into her soul or something, but then again, Asuka never backed down over something like that, and she wasn't going to back down now. "I'm a… brat?" Jin asked.

Asuka nodded. "In every sense of the word!"

Jin's eyes darted away for a second, before they refocused back on Asuka, and he asked, "And why is that?"

Asuka sighed. "I can't believe I have to explain it to you! Brats are badly behaved children! And that's what you are! A very, very badly behaved child!"

Jin crossed his arms. "And why am I a child? Is it because I abuse the power given to me? Like create a war?"

Asuka nodded. "That's one of the reasons!"

Jin sighed. "This may be over your head, but I did it for the greater good. If my plan had worked perfectly, then not only would the world have been safe from Azazel and the Devil Gene forever, but it would've brought back everyone who had lost their lives in the conflict as well, so it would have been a win-win."

"Yeah, but it didn't work, did it?"

"An unforeseen consequence to a just cause." Jin shook his head. "People like you just don't understand," he muttered.

"It doesn't matter if I understand or not!" Asuka said, jabbing her index finger hard into Jin's chest. "That doesn't make my statement wrong, does it?!"

"Fair enough, it didn't work, but no matter how many times I fail, I won't stop until I dispose of the Devil Gene and create a peaceful world."

"Even if it means using the wrong tactics?!" Asuka cried.

"…If that's what it takes. It doesn't matter what happens, in the end, the ends justify the means."

"And the means define the ends!"

Jin raised an eyebrow at this. "How so?"

"The way you're doing it is wrong!" Asuka cried. "If you achieve peace that way then no one will ever really see it that way, and that'll only cause more problems!" Asuka shook her head in disbelief. "I thought you were at least a little smarter than this!"

"My mission is to create a peaceful world! Anyone who opposes me is an enemy of peace, and I swear, I will take it upon myself to deal with those types of people myself!"

"That type of peace is a joke! And killing people who don't agree with whatever type of peace you put in front of them!? Are you kidding me?! Are you even listening to yourself right now?!"

"Yes," Jin answered gravely, "I do understand what I am saying!" He looked down at the ground, a hint of sadness could be seen in his eyes. "I've had to realize this the hard way, but…," he again looked Asuka in the eye, sadness now apparent in them, "problems and solutions can't always be as simple as we want them to be. It's not just right and wrong or black and white, there's a middle ground, a thin line between the two." His face again looked determined and confident. "Starting a war isn't anyone's first choice, but if it's the best solution, or even part of the best solution, then I'll gladly do it."

Asuka couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Idiot! There you are making excuses for your actions! Asuka pointed an accusing finger at him. "That's why you're a brat, because only brats do bad things and make lame excuses for them!"

"Don't meddle in affairs that you don't even know the half of!" Jin cried, his patience running out. He looked at his family. "This family has been cursed! Not just by itself, but by this!" Jin cried, pointing at the mark of the Devil Gene on his shoulder. "This is the ultimate evil in this world! If we don't do something about it nowit will overtake us and use us for whatever it wants us to do! I've seen firsthand the destruction this mark has made me do, and I will not just sit back and let it have its way! Not with me, nor with the world!"

"And just like a brat you blame your own faults on others!" Asuka argued. "Why are you making it so complicated?! Just do what's right, stick to what's right no matter what happens, and eventually, the right thing will happen!"

"I've already told you, things aren't always black and white!"

"And you're overusing the gray!" Asuka cried. "And when you overuse the color gray, it looks more like black than white!"

Jin couldn't really think up an argument for that, but it still looked like he still wasn't going to relent.

"Fine then," Asuka thought, "I guess I'll have to do the argument that even I don't feel comfortable using."

"Alright Jin, let's go with this then," Asuka said. "Do you believe that using warfare, killing people, and abusing political and economic power for the sake of bringing peace is right?"

Jin narrowed his eyes. "I've already answered those questions," he said.

Asuka let out an annoyed huff. "I don't mean based on the situation," she explained, "I'm asking about your views on those topics in general!"

Jin, a little bit surprised by what she said, looked at Jun's grave for a moment, and said, "I think it's wrong."

Asuka placed her hands on her hips. "I don't believe you."

Jin looked at Asuka, surprised. "What?"

Asuka shook her head. "I don't think you believe it's wrong." She looked at Jun's grave. "I think Jun thinks it's wrong." She looked back at Jin. "But I'm not too sure about you." By the look on Jin's face, Asuka knew that she had to explain. "It's great that you think so highly of your mother, but I think after all these years… it's about time you let her go."

"What?!" Jin cried, almost hysterically. "Are you saying that I should forget about my mother, the one good thing that I've ever had in my entire life?!"

Asuka raised her hands up in protest. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, I never said that!" She lowered her hands, and said softly, "We should all remember the dead, but that's what anniversaries and visiting their graves are for. In the end… life goes on, ya' know? We've got to live for ourselves, not for others that have passed away."

Jin eyed her suspiciously. "What are you saying?"

Asuka scratched the back of her head. "I don't know," she said softly. "I guess what I'm saying is that… I think you need to start thinking for yourself. I mean… you didn't kill Heihachi and Kazuya, even though you've had an opportunity to do it in the past, right? (Don't ask why I know, that's… not really important right now.) Well… why is that?"

Jin thought for a moment. "I remembered my mother, and I knew that she wouldn't have approved of it."

Asuka nodded in understanding. "And what do you feel, personally?"

Jin glared at his grandfather and father respectively. "I should have killed them when I had the chance."

"See?" Asuka asked. "And I think that's the same thing that's going on right now! You aren't fighting for your dream, you're fighting for hers! I think it's great that you want to make Jun's dream of a peaceful world come true, but… unless you really want it, unless you really believe in it, I think your personal values and goals will keep you from succeeding, that it'll just tarnish Jun's dream, especially with your own personal beliefs and goals being so malicious as of late." Asuka smiled, and said, "I believe Jun raised you right, so I think that, deep down, you do have good values and beliefs in you, it's just that your experiences have forced you to… compromise them a bit." She then folded her arms. "Now… tell me Jin Kazama… using warfare, killing people and abusing one's power to bring peace to the world: good or bad?" She then added, "And be honest this time!"

Jin thought for a moment. He looked at Jun's grave. "Mother would've obviously said no," Jin thought, "but then again," he glanced at Asuka from the corner of his eye, "she's asking me what I think, but aren't what Jun and I think the same? Didn't we both have the same values and dreams?" Jin rubbed his temples, and then finally shook his head. "No, we didn't. I wanted to kill Heihachi and Kazuya that time, but it was because of the memory of my mother that I spared them. If it weren't for that, I would've killed them." He looked back at his mother's grave again. "My mother would have never done something like that, no matter how evil a person was, she would've never killed them to bring peace… but me, if I didn't think of her… I would've." Jin looked down again. "So does that mean that my mother and I don't have the same dream, a dream of a peaceful world?" Jin thought for a moment and shook his head. "No… I want a peaceful world just as much as she did, but then why… why am I so conflicted right now? Is this what goes through the head of a peace-maker?" Jin looked at his hands for a moment before shaking his head. "No… someone who is fighting for such a just cause… wouldn't be this conflicted." He sighed. "But why?"

He tried to remember everything Asuka had said to him. "I'm trying to make… Jun's dream a reality? My personal values and goals are getting in the way?" Jin looked at his mother's grave and thought for a moment. "Maybe… she has a point? I mean… from going from trying to kill my whole cursed family to trying to bring peace to the entire world? Have to admit, that's a pretty big leap. I guess… it was just the way I interpreted it, the image of her when I was about to kill Heihachi. I guess I didn't want to tarnish her memory, so I decided against killing them and tried my best to make our… or rather, her dream a reality. It wasn't our dream I was fighting for, it was her dream, something completely devoted to her memory. In my head, I was completely out of the picture. I was doing all of this… for someone else's dream," he looked as Asuka, "and this girl called me out for doing it half-heartedly. After all, I did compromise my principles more than I ever thought I would. People aren't as dedicated and committed to dreams or goals that they themselves didn't really come up with or want in the first place. But what does that mean? That I don't really want a peaceful world?" Jin thought for a moment. "No, it's definitely my dream too, but if I'm going to be serious about it, if I really care about that dream, then…," he looked sadly back at his mother's grave, "I'm going to have to move on… from her. I can't do this for her, I have to do this because I want to do this. I can remember her, and think about her while I'm doing it, but ultimately… this has to be my dream and my dream alone. I can't chain myself to Jun's dream, even though they're the same, I need to strive for my dream and turn those chains into a bond between the two of us. I need to live for myself… not for her, even though she could still be what makes me strong whenever I need strength, I ultimately need that strength to further MY goals. And my goal, my dream, is…," Jin closed his eyes and thought for a moment. He nodded and clenched his fist. "To create a peaceful world!"

He thought for a moment. "It'll be tough though. Some the experiences I've been through, the people I've met," he looked at Kazuya and Heihachi, and then at the mark of the Devil Gene on his shoulder, "they've all corrupted me in some way. I should've been stronger… but I wasn't. If I had told my younger self that I had brought world peace by war, he'd probably yell at me and try to beat me up." Jin let out a barely audible laugh and smiled a bit from the image of his younger self trying to beat him up with his tiny little fists. "But that just proves that peace really was my dream, and that I did have the values and beliefs to support that dream." He looked back at Jun's grave, a small smile on his face. "I hope you can forgive me mother, for putting you through all that doubt, sadness and regret and tarnishing your dream. I'll strive for my dream, for real this time."

He looked at Asuka, and realized that he hadn't answered her question yet. He took a moment to think, and then answered, "I acknowledge that certain things are worth fighting for, that there are certain people that would be better off dead than alive, and that one should always use what one has," he paused for a moment, "but when you get right down to it…," he looked at Asuka, "yes, I believe that all those things are… wrong."

Asuka smiled up to him, and, to everyone's surprise, ruffled up his hair a bit. "Good! You're finally starting to act like a good, boy!" She then added sadly, "Though, just a little, but you're definitely getting there." She took her hand out of his hair. "I have no doubt in my mind that once you stop compromising your principles, not only will you bring actual peace to this world," she closed her eyes and paused for a moment, "but I believe that you'll be proud of yourself… just as Jun will be proud of you." Asuka then raised her arms and stretched a bit, letting out a small moan as she stretched out some of the kinks in her back. "Well… that was tough, but looks like we all got through it all in one piece!" She then dusted her hands. "I think my job here is done."

Anna slowly raised her hand. "Um… what about us? Aren't you going to scold us too?" Nina nodded in agreement.

Asuka looked at the two in disbelief. "You mean you two… want to be lectured?"

Anna casually shrugged. "It's a pride thing."

Nina nodded. "Assassins take great pride in their reputation," she explained. "It can range from efficiency, stealth, combat skills and how dangerous they are." She shrugged just as casually as her sister did. "You've lectured every dangerous person here."

"And by that, we mean everybody here," Anna muttered.

"And we don't want to leave here knowing that every dangerous person here got scolded except us. Makes us feel less dangerous."

"That's… kind of stupid," Asuka said.

Nina sighed. "Then just lecture us about how stupid we are. That's basically what you've told everyone else here."

Anna nodded. "Yeah, we'll just go with that, and, you know, fix it to suit us whichever way we think is best."

Asuka sighed. "You two shouldn't be so obsessed with your reputation and your jobs. I mean seriously, you'd do any assignment?! And for what exactly?! For the pay?! Everyone almost died today! You two are willing to risk dying a big, fiery, explosive death just for money!? Are you crazy?! And now look at you two, using your reputation to dictate your lives! I mean, seriously, this is like the best example of how NOT to live your life! And the worst part is, you guys are sisters! You're freakin' family! You guys might have to kill each other one day… and you two are somewhat okay with it! I mean… I just…," Asuka rubbed her temples furiously, "you two… don't make any sense!" She pointed angrily at them. "Get a job! Get an actual job! And get a life while you're at it! An ACTUAL life! Anything except… this!"

Nina and Anna took a few moments to recover from all that, but once they did, they looked at each other. "Was that good enough for you?" Nina asked, still looking as indifferent as ever.

Anna nodded, a smile appearing on her face. "Pretty good actually. Just a few tweaks to the story here and there, and I think I'll start having more job requests than you, sis."

Nina shook her head. "You keep telling yourself that."

Anna tossed her hair a bit. "Likewise."

"Okay, okay," Asuka said quickly. "Is that everything?! Are we done yet?!" She looked around for any sign of protest. "No one else has any immediate issues we need to address?!" Still no answer. Asuka let out a sigh of relief. "Alright, that's good. NOW we're done!" She then took a deep breath, letting her accomplishment sink in for a moment, before finally clapping her hands in a commanding way. "Alright, let's line up!"

Everyone gave her a surprised look. "What exactly for?" Alisa asked, tilting her head out of curiosity.

Asuka smiled, and stroked her hair a bit, before answering, "For Jun's funeral," she looked at the dead Tekken Force soldiers on the ground, "and while we're at it, it's their funeral too." Everyone looked at each other, some of them not really knowing what to do at the moment. Then, one by one, they all started doing it. Whether lining up to pay their respects to the dead or carrying the bodies of the dead Tekken Force soldiers and placing them beside Jun's grave, all neatly placing them in a line (though some more reluctantly than others), it didn't matter. Amazingly, this one girl had made some of the most dysfunctional people in the world cooperate with one another, even for just a little bit.

Asuka's parents looked at each other and smiled. To say that they were proud of their daughter would've been understatement. They were extremely proud of her right now. Not only had she held her own against all these skilled and powerful fighters, but she was able to resolve the matter between them peacefully. And now look: she even somehow convinced them to cooperate for a little while longer and make them do a proper funeral for the dead. They were about to join them when suddenly, a strong, yet gentle breeze blew by, and a small, green bird landed on a small branch on one of the trees and started chirping its little song. Asuka looked at the bird, her hair flowing in the same direction as the breeze, and smiled. Asuka's parents looked at their daughter, and her father could have sworn that, for a moment, she bore a slight resemblance to a certain someone, the same certain someone who was watching them all from above, a mysterious smile slowly spreading across her face.

* * *

Author's Note: GAAAAAAAAAAAH! I'M FINALLY DONE WITH THIS CHAPTER! Don't get me wrong, I don't hate doing these, but it's just… this chapter took so much time and effort to do, and now that it's finished… ah geeze, this feels good! Gonna be honest though, I'm gonna take a break from this story, because, well… look at it! It's freakin' huge! This thing was 84 pages on my Microsoft Word for crying out loud! And besides, I need to work on my other stories too.

Besides, this will give everyone who reads this story enough time to vote on the poll that I've created for this story! Yeah, I've realized that I've been taking requests for the past two chapters, so I said, "Heck, might as well keep it going like this." It's not like there's a set order for these chapters anyways, it's just fun little stories. That being said, just because Alisa, Nina, Anna, Kuma and Combot are in this story, doesn't mean that they won't get their own chapter. That's right, they're in the poll too! Just go to my profile page and vote for the character you REALLY want to see next! Be careful, you only get one vote!

Everything in this story is based on my interpretation of the characters and story. I know some of you offered help, but I felt that I had to do the research and give you my interpretation of the events and characters. Hope you liked this story! Hopefully you liked it!


	4. The Fox and the Leo

"Wow!" Asuka cried, a bit of drool coming out from the side of her mouth as she gazed at all the delicious food in front of her. "This all looks so good!"

Her host smiled. "It does, doesn't it?"

Asuka nodded, her eyes not leaving the food for a second. "I want to eat it all!"

Her host laughed. "Well then why don't you?"

Asuka finally took her eyes off the food and looked at her host, her eyes growing wide. "What?"

Her host nodded. "I mean it! I thought I'd make your first day with me a good one, so tonight, even though it's not an all-you-can-eat restaurant, you can eat all the food you want. All expenses paid by moi."

At first, Asuka was too shocked to say or do anything, but slowly, a big smile appeared on her face. She jumped excitedly in her seat and gave her host a great, big hug. "I love English men!" she cried.

Her host couldn't help but laugh. "Apparently not as much as you love food! Now why don't you dig in before all the food our chef was kind enough to make for us gets cold?"

Asuka let go, grinned, clapped her hands together into a prayer position and cried, "Thank you for the food!" and started to fill her plate and stuff her face with all the delicious Japanese cuisine in front of her. "It's so good!" she gushed, her mouth full.

Their chef smiled and bowed. "I'm glad you approve."

Asuka stopped for a moment to look at their chef. She swallowed all the food in her mouth and politely said, "Your welcome," before immediately going back to eating and savoring all the food she could eat. After all, it's not every day you go to a five star teppanyaki restaurant with the world middleweight boxing champion, Steve Fox, who's apparently paying for the entire thing!

One of Steve's two bodyguards, Frank, leaned forward and whispered to Steve, "She's an interesting one, isn't she?"

Steve's other bodyguard, Joe, nodded. "Not even star-struck when she first met you either. She's already treating you like the two of you are best friends or something."

Steve chuckled. He turned to Frank. "Interesting people make for an interesting experience." He turned to Joe. "And I like the fact that she's comfortable around me thank you very much. It's not like I want to be idolized or feel like I'm hard to talk to."

"Understood," Frank said.

"My apologies Mr. Fox," Joe replied.

Steve sighed. "Now if only you guys would feel comfortable around me." Steve had had these guys as bodyguards for quite some time now and they still refused to call him by his first name, despite his many pleas for them to do so. Frank was a tall, black, muscular man with a crew cut, while Joe was the smaller of the two, white, and had short, brown hair. Frank was the powerhouse while Joe was the marksman and the two were nice enough, but you know… they just didn't refer to Steve by his first name.

Just then, a male restaurant employee walked up to them and said, "Excuse me, but is it okay if our manager could talk to Mr. Fox?" He spoke in a heavy Asian accent.

Frank and Joe were automatically on the defensive. "Why?" Frank asked.

The employee looked at Steve's two body guards uneasily. "He would like to see if he can convince Mr. Fox to promote the restaurant."

Frank and Joe looked at each other. "Is it okay if we come along?" Joe asked.

The employee quickly shook his head. "Oh no!"

Joe raised an eyebrow at this. "Why not?" he asked.

The employee hesitated, before answering, "Our manager gets very intimidated very easily. Mr. Fox is known for his easygoing nature, and, well… he does not know you, and…," he gestured quickly towards the two bodyguards, "to him, you both look so intimidating."

Frank stepped forward. "I'm sorry he feels that way, but -"

"Aw, come on!" Steve said, standing up and placing his hands on Frank and Joe's shoulders and giving them a reassuring squeeze. "This isn't the first time we've been to this restaurant guys! Everyone's cool here. Besides," he walked up to the employee, "you guys aren't exactly known for being managers or businessmen." They were about to protest, but Steve stopped them. "Look, only I can decide if I want to do this or not." They still didn't look too sure. "I'll be fine. Look, if I'm not back or haven't contacted you in thirty minutes then you can come and get me yourselves, alright?"

The two looked at each other anxiously before finally deciding to let Steve out of their sight and protection. "Just remember to contact us within thirty minutes," Frank warned.

Joe grinned and elbowed Frank good-naturedly in the gut. "Or else the big man here'll break the manager's door down."

A smirk appeared on Frank's face. "And Joe here'll start shooting the ceiling like a maniac."

Steve smiled. "Thanks for understanding guys," he said, giving each of them a small pat on the arm.

Asuka looked up from eating just in time to catch Steve before he left. "You're going somewhere?" she asked, her mouth full, making her question a little bit hard to understand.

Steve nodded. "Business. You'll understand one day when you're older." He and the employee started to walk away.

Asuka quickly swallowed the food in her mouth and cried, "I'm eighteen!" When Steve didn't say anything back, she grumbled for a bit before going back to eating all the "free" food.

The employee led Steve upstairs and down a red hallway, to a door at the end of the hallway. He was about to open the door, but before he did, he looked at Steve and whispered, "I'm sorry."

Steve raised an eyebrow at this. "Hm?"

The employee took a deep breath and opened the door. "Please come in, Mr. Fox."

Steve eyed him suspiciously before walking into the room. When he did, he came to an abrupt halt. Inside the room was a large group of men in black suits, black ties, black pants, black fedora hats, black shoes, black shades and holsters. They all reached for their holsters and pulled out their guns, pointing them all at him, all their guns clicking in unison in their hands.

The men at the center of the group then moved out of the way, to reveal another man dressed up just like them, only this one was sitting comfortably in a chair and smoking a cigar. He looked up at Steve and smiled. "Hello Steve," he said.

Steve heard the door behind him close and saw from the corner of his eyes some of the men positioning themselves in front of the door. Steve's eyes widened. "Oh dear…."

* * *

As Asuka continued to eat (and humorously enough, the chef was having a hard time keeping up with the demand), Frank took a long sip of his drink while Joe paced around the table nervously.

"I don't know man," Joe said, shaking his head, "something doesn't feel right about this."

Frank nodded gravely. "Tell me about it."

Asuka stopped eating, sighed, put all of her eating utensils down on the table, and pouted in annoyance at the two. "You know," she said, "it's very hard to enjoy one's meal when everyone else at the table is so tense." She looked around and saw the same employee that led Steve away to take care of "business". "Look," she said, pointing at the employee. Frank and Joe looked at where, or rather who, she was pointing at. "If you guys are so worried then just ask the guy what's going on. Set your worries at ease or something." She went back to eating her food.

Frank and Joe looked at each other and shrugged. It made sense. They walked up to the employee, who, the moment he spotted them coming towards him, started fidgeting furiously. "Excuse me," Joe said, putting up a friendly smile in hopes of looking less intimidating, "but can you tell us more about what the meeting between Mr. Fox and your manager is about? You know, just so we can get a good idea about what's going on in there."

The employee quickly looked up the stairs to see two men in black suits, shades, shoes, pants, ties, and fedora hats looking down at him and shaking their heads disapprovingly. The employee looked back at Frank and Joe and shook his head furiously. "Sorry," he laughed weakly, "don't know what you're talking about!" He quickly walked away.

"Hey!" Frank grabbed him by his collar and brought their faces dangerously close to each other. "Don't play games with us! We're not deaf!"

"Or have short-term memory loss for that matter," Joe added.

Frank tightened his grip on the employee's collar. "Now talk," he threatened.

The employee was obviously losing it. "I'm sorry, but I can't!"

Frank shook him a bit. "Why not?!" he growled.

The employee just gulped and shook his head, sweat pouring furiously down his brow. Joe sighed. "You really can't tell us?" The employee shook his head. Joe nodded understandingly and tapped Frank gently on the arm. "Put him down Frank."

Frank sighed, before grudgingly putting the employee down. As the employee ran off, the two bodyguards looked at each other and Frank asked, "Now what?"

Joe shrugged. "I don't know man." He looked at his watch. "Not even close to thirty minutes yet."

"But we both know something's up."

Joe shrugged. "Either that or the guy wants to keep it private."

Frank glared at him. "THAT was private?"

Joe raised his hands up in resignation. "Look, we don't have any REAL reason to barge in just yet."

Frank rubbed his temples. "Then what are we supposed to do?"

"Investigate," a voice behind them said.

Frank and Joe looked behind them to see the owner of the voice, and found Asuka, standing behind them with her hands on her hips, looking at the two knowingly. "Investigate what?" Frank asked.

Asuka gave them an arrogant smirk and shrugged. "Oh, I don't know," she said, "maybe the two suspicious-looking guys up there." She pointed up the stairs, where the men were still standing, trying to look casual, but were obviously watching them out of the corner of their eyes.

The two took one good look at the two men upstairs and shook their heads. "They look a little too suspicious if you ask me," Joe said.

"So suspicious that it's sickeningly obvious," Frank added. "It's like they're prepared for us to come up there."

Joe nodded. "And will probably cause a ruckus if we do." He turned to Asuka. "And we can't have that."

Asuka thought for a moment and then smiled. "Then let's make sure they don't." Frank and Joe looked confused. Asuka leaned forward and whispered, "Go up there and talk to them. When I make my move, you make yours. And make it quick!" She casually walked back to their table.

Frank and Joe looked at each other. Frank looked unsure. "Should we go along with her plan?"

Joe shrugged. "What else are we gonna do?"

They walked up the stairs. The two men in black confronted them. "Um, excuse me," Joe said, in the friendliest way he could, "but someone we know went down that hallway, and we're trying to find him, so -"

"This hallway's off limits," one of the men said.

Frank frowned. "Why?"

The other man glared at him. "Private party. They don't want to be disturbed."

Frank glared back. "But what about our friend who went down this hallway?"

There was a glare-off between these two. "How do I know that he's your friend or not?"

Frank took a menacing step forward. "Ask them and find out."

"We already told you, they don't want to be disturbed."

"Even if it's just one simple question?"

"That's what they said."

"Look," the first man said, "you can't come through here and that's final."

Joe smirked. "What is this, a restaurant policy?"

The first man looked at him. "Yes," he said.

Joe let out a small laugh. "But you don't even work here!"

Now this one was glaring at Joe. "How do you know that?"

Joe gestured towards their clothes. "You guys aren't wearing the restaurant's employee uniform!"

"These are special uniforms."

"Really? Because we've been here a couple of times and I can safely say that we've never seen those uniforms before."

"Get it over your heads!" the second man growled. "You aren't going through this hallway!"

Frank crossed his arms. "And what's stopping us?!"

The two men looked at each other and nodded. They lifted one side of their suits to reveal guns in holsters. "These will stop you," the first man said. "Dead in your tracks."

Frank's eyes narrowed as Joe's eyes widened. The second man grinned. "Now," he said, "back off, and mind your business."

"Sorry," a female voice said, "but meddling is kind of my thing." All of a sudden, Asuka pushed Frank and Joe out of the way and ran towards the two men. Taken by surprise, the two men couldn't reach for the guns in time and were grabbed by Asuka and manipulated to eventually make their heads collide with each other, making them fall to the ground, disoriented.

Asuka turned around. "What did I say about making a quick move after I did mine?!" she asked.

"It'd be a heck of a lot quicker," Joe argued, "if you didn't push us out of the way!"

Asuka shrugged. "I could've jumped over you, but that would've attracted a lot of unwanted attention."

Frank laughed. "She's a sassy one, isn't she?"

Joe looked at him in horror. "You're enjoying this?" he cried. "YOU of all people?!"

Frank smiled, cracked his knuckles, and said, "What can I say? Mr. Fox was right. Interesting people make for an interesting experience!" As the two men were starting to get back up, he ran up to the second one and put a sleeper hold on him and dragged him further down the hallway as Joe tackled the first one and forced him down the hallway as well.

The one Frank was dealing with was struggling to get him off, wiggling, elbowing and kicking as much as he could, but that didn't stop Frank, he kept his hold on him. Meanwhile, Joe and his guy were fighting it out on the ground (and in Asuka's opinion, pretty badly). The guy eventually forced Frank off and tripped him towards the wall, making him bang his head against it, disorienting him for a bit. The guy then took a moment to catch his breath and look around. He was considering on helping his friend out until he saw Asuka, who was simply watching the fight for once (after all, it was an obvious good guy vs. bad guy fight, and it wasn't as chaotic as the fights she would often break up at home), and an idea crept into his head.

"Don't move!" he cried. Everyone looked at him. He reached for his gun and pointed it at Asuka. "Or the girl gets it!"

Asuka didn't look impressed or threatened at all. "Gets what?"

He looked at her. "A bullet in the head!"

"And how's that gonna work?"

The guy looked at her like she was crazy. "I pull the trigger on this gun!"

Asuka's expression still didn't change. "What gun?"

"This -" the guy looked at his hand to find that there was no gun. "What the…. Where's my gun?!"

He heard someone whistle behind him. He turned around to see his gun dangling between Joe's fingers and Joe with an arrogant smirk on his face. He reached for the gun, but Joe kept it out of reach and, once the moment presented itself, knocked the guy out with the butt of his gun.

Asuka walked up to the unconscious man on the floor and looked at Joe, amused. "Impressive," she said, "but I could've knocked him out without a gun."

Joe sighed. "Yeah, yeah." He looked at the guy Frank was putting in a sleeper hold. He looked ready to pass out. "Frank, take it easy on that guy man. We need him right now." Frank looked at the fading man in his arms and reluctantly eased his hold on the guy's neck. Joe and Asuka walked up to him. "Now," Joe said, pointing his accomplice's gun at him, "where's Mr. Fox?"

* * *

"Hey guys! Fancy meeting you here! Small world isn't it?" Steve let out a small, weak laugh.

The head honcho laughed along with him, resulting in Steve's laughing abruptly stopping. A little while after Steve stopped laughing the head honcho stopped laughing and got serious. "You're a funny guy Steve," he said. "A true comedian if I ever saw one. Come on," he leaned forward in his chair, "tell us a joke Steve."

Some of the men in the room chuckled as they saw Steve squirm a little. He let out another weak laugh. "I beg your pardon?" Steve asked.

"Tell us a joke Steve," the head honcho repeated.

Steve gulped and pulled on his collar nervously. "Well, uh, forgive me, but, uh… I can't really think of any jokes right now."

The leader gave him a look of mock disbelief. "Can't think of any jokes?! Well then, we need to help him out a bit, shouldn't we boys?"

The men snickered, laughed aloud, or said, "Yeah, help him!"

The leader thought for a moment, before he snapped his fingers and said, "Oh, remember that one joke?"

Steve was almost afraid to ask. "What… joke?"

The leader gave Steve another look of disbelief. "You know… THAT joke!"

Steve slowly shook his head. He didn't like where this was going. "Still don't know what THAT joke is."

The man sighed. "You know! The joke about you honestly thinking that you could challenge the mafia and get away with it!" He sighed again and shook his head. "There was a lot of money riding on that fight Steve."

"Fellas that fight was a long time ago! I'd have thought that you all forgot about it by now. You know, moved on or what not."

The head honcho looked at him solemnly and stood up. "The mafia never forgets Steve."

Steve gulped. "I can see that now."

The mafia boss started pacing around the room, slowly circling around Steve. "You know Steve, we could've got this over with a long time ago, but you just kept on running and running, and when we finally had you right where we wanted you, it turned out that you had a guardian angel. A guardian angel with," he cringed a bit, "a bit of a reputation. So we decided to lay low for a while, make you and your guardian angel think that we gave up on you, and it worked. Our guys reported that she wasn't hovering over you anymore. We could've gotten you then too, but…," he shook his head again, "that war… it really messed us up. We went into hiding, laid low until the war was over. And now we're here." He stopped pacing around and looked at Steve. "And look where you are now Steve: trapped in a room, surrounded by armed, vengeful men, with no safe way out. And the last time I checked, your guardian angel is working for the head of the Mishima Financial Group right now, and tonight, we're nowhere near the Mishima Financial Group. And even if we were, we're in an small, enclosed space in a public restaurant with no windows, so the only way she could possibly help you now is if she broke through that door," he pointed at the door Steve came in from, "and bombed the whole room. And that wouldn't be protecting you, now would it?"

Steve gulped. He was right. With such a small, enclosed place, with him in the middle of it and surrounded by enemies, there was very little anyone could really do to save him, let alone themselves if they even attempted to try and save him. At this point, the situation did seem hopeless.

The mafia boss saw the scared expression on Steve's face and smiled. "You're scared, that's good." He then frowned and shook his head again. "If only you were scared then too." He walked to his seat in the room and sat back down. He waved to his men. "Kill him."

"W-wait!" Steve cried. "The sound of all the gunfire would cause a disturbance! It'll get the public's attention!"

The mafia boss looked disappointed at him. "Oh Steve," he leaned forward into his chair, "we're the mafia. What makes you think we care?"

Some of the men laughed, and they all readied their guns. Steve closed his eyes. "This is it," he thought. "People call me a lot of things, but 'The Man who can Deflect Bullets with his Fists' isn't one of them." He readied himself for the oncoming onslaught.

Just then someone knocked on the door. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at the door. "Who is it?" the mafia boss asked.

"I-it's me!"

The mafia boss sighed. "Lenny! What are you doing here?! Shouldn't you and Carlos be guarding the hallway?!"

A pause. "W-well, we didn't want to miss out on the fun... so…."

Everyone looked at the mafia boss, who was thinking it over. He shrugged. "Ah, why not." He turned to one of his men. "Unlock the door, would you Pedro?"

Pedro unlocked the door, and was about to open it, when suddenly the door barged open and Lenny's body was flung over Steve and on top of the men and the mafia boss in front of him, knocking them all down. Too shocked at what had just happened, the men closer to the door couldn't react fast enough to their intruders, who were taking full advantage of the distraction and proceeded to knock them down and kick their guns out of their hands.

Frank turned to the dumbfounded Steve. "We better leave champ!"

Steve looked at him and nodded. "Y-yeah."

As they made their escape, the mafia leader and the men under Lenny finally pushed him off, and the mafia boss pointed at the door and ordered, "After them!"

Steve, Asuka and Frank heard him from down the hall. "They're coming after us!" Steve cried.

"Don't worry!" Asuka cried. "We've got that covered!"

As they were running, Steve saw Joe at the end of the hallway, readying his gun. As they passed him, he cried, "Get into the limo, I'll slow them down!"

Steve's eyes widened. "You're going to kill them?!"

Asuka gave him a disapproving look. "Not on my watch! He's only going to go for the legs."

"I can go for their guns too you know!"

Asuka glared at him. "Too risky! You're lucky I'm letting you shoot at them at all!"

Joe sighed. "Fine, fine."

They were about to leave, but a horrible thought crept into Steve's mind. "Wait," Steve said, "we'd be leaving you behind though!"

Joe looked at him, a solemn look on his face. "Mr. Fox when we first met, I told you that I'd gladly take a bullet for you!"

"Yes, but I didn't think you were serious!"

"Mr. Fox!" Frank cried. "We need to leave, now!"

Steve turned to Asuka. "I thought you were an extreme pacifist!"

"I am!" Asuka insisted. "But I'm not an idiot! I can't stop a bunch of criminals with guns!" Before Steve could say anything else, Asuka stopped him, and added gently, "I don't like the idea of leaving Joe behind either, but…," she glanced sadly at Joe, who was looking down the hallway, ready for the imminent shootout, "I don't think I could stop him even if I tried."

Steve looked discouraged, but otherwise, reluctantly ran down the stairs after Frank, and Asuka, taking one last look at Joe, followed suit.

When Steve finally got downstairs he looked around. To his surprise, the restaurant was empty. "You guys evacuated the entire restaurant?" he asked, impressed.

Frank turned around and answered, "Joe did. There're three of us after all."

Just then, the three on the first floor heard heavy gunfire and cries of pain upstairs. They looked up to see Joe firing back at the mafia members down the hallway. Joe took a moment to look down at the three and yell, "What are you waiting for?! Go!"

Frank was the first one to snap out of his staring spell. He started to attempt to push Steve out of the restaurant, but he was having a little bit of trouble, as Steve seemed to be glued to the ground. "Come on Mr. Fox! We need to get going!" When that didn't work, he placed a firm hand on Steve's shoulder, squeezed it, and said, "Don't let his sacrifice go to waste."

That seemed to snap Steve out of it. He looked at Frank and nodded, signaling that he was ready to go. Frank nodded back and ran to the door, signaled for Asuka and Steve to let him go first, opened the door and ran out of the restaurant… only to walk into an ambush. "There he is! Fire at will!" one of the men cried and the rest of the men did just that. Steve and Asuka, hearing all the gunfire and Frank's cries of pain, quickly ran for cover and hid away from the door, Asuka going in one direction and Steve going in the other. Once the gunfire stopped, the mafia members ran into the restaurant and, once they spotted Joe, began shooting at him. Joe, being on the stairs, had at least some cover on him, as the stairs had a small wall rather than a railing. As they all came in and opened fire at Joe (who was probably still firing at the ones down the hallway), Asuka made eye contact with Steve from across the room and gave him a nod towards the door. When Steve gave her a questioning look, Asuka just nodded her head harder towards the door and held up her hand and started a countdown with her fingers.

When she had finally gotten to zero, Steve made a break for the door, which caught the attention of some of the mafia members. "Hey, he's making a break for it!" they cried, as they were aiming their guns at his direction, and they were about to fire too, but Asuka took them by surprise by getting up from her hiding place, throwing a couple of chairs at the mafia members, throwing many of them back and out of commission, and quickly ran up to the rest of them, either knocking them down or kicking their guns out of their hands. She was about to make a run for the door, but froze the moment she heard a click of a gun behind her. Turning around, she saw that one of the men who had been hit by one of the chairs had somehow gotten herself back up to his feet and was aiming his gun at Asuka, and would've fired too, if Joe hadn't beaten him to the punch and shot the man's gun out of his hand. After a moment's hesitation, Asuka quickly ran as fast as she could out the door.

Once Asuka went out the door, she spotted something on the floor, and stopped, horrified at what she saw: Frank, with blood filled bullet wounds across his entire body, lying dead on the ground. For some reason, despite how horrible the sight was, she couldn't take her eyes off it. It was like she was frozen in place, unable to move, even if she wanted to. She would've stayed frozen there for a long time, if Steve hadn't drove by and honked the limo's horn in front of her, snapping her out of her stupor. "C'mon, get in, get in!" Steve cried.

Asuka nodded and ran up to the front passenger's seat. "How did you get the keys?" Asuka asked as she fastened her seatbelt.

"I, uh… had to take it from… you know," he nodded towards Frank's body.

"Oh," Asuka said softly.

Steve slowly nodded and stomped on the gas pedal. The limo quickly sped out of the parking lot and into the streets, and every turn Steve made was extremely wide, making Asuka's body swing back and forth and side to side in her seat from the speed that they were going and all of their sharp turns.

"Hey, watch it!" Asuka cried. "You want to get us killed or something?!"

"I'm trying to PREVENT us from getting killed!" Steve exclaimed.

"Yeah, well, you're doing a heck of a job at it!" Asuka argued. "At this point, the mafia won't even need to kill us themselves!" She frantically reached into her pocket, pulled out her cell phone and dialed a number.

Steve looked at what she was doing and cried, "Who are you calling at a time like this?!"

"THE POLICE! DUH!" Asuka shook her head, exasperated. She held her phone to her ear and waited impatiently for someone to answer her call.

"Why didn't you do that back at the restaurant?!"

"Because they were about to MURDER you! Oh, and by the way… YOU'RE WELCOME!"

Just then, Asuka heard a voice on the other end. "Hello, 9-1-1, how may we help you?" a female voice asked.

"Finally!" Asuka cried. "Listen, my friend and I are being chased by the mafia right now and we need help, fast!"

"The mafia?!" the woman cried. "Alright, we'll help you any way we can! Can you give me any details?"

"Details?" Asuka asked.

"Asuka," Steve said, "put it on speaker."

Asuka nodded and put her phone on speaker. "Do you know why they're chasing after you?" the woman asked.

"Um…," Asuka looked at Steve. This was a question only he could answer.

"Well…," Steve said slowly, obviously uncomfortable about talking about the subject, and if that wasn't enough, had to drive and talk on the phone at the same time, "I'm Steve Fox, the middleweight boxing champion you see, and one of my matches was apparently a high-stakes fight, and the mafia wanted me to throw the fight. And… well… let's just say that I didn't do that and they didn't take it too well."

A pause. "Sir, how long has it been since then?"

Steve thought for a moment. "Um… a year ago."

Another pause. "Did you call the police then too?"

Steve paused. "Um… no."

Another pause. "So let me get this straight, you've been directly threatened by the mafia a year ago, and you didn't contact authorities until now?"

"…Yes." After a few seconds of absolute silence, Steve looked at Asuka's phone and asked, "Is she still on, or is there something wrong with your phone?"

Asuka gawked at him and then slowly rubbed her temples. "What's wrong with the phone he asks?" she muttered. "Steve, what's wrong with you?!"

"I was young back then!"

Asuka glared at him. "Steve, how old are you?"

Steve gulped, and answered, "Twenty-two."

"So you were twenty-one then."

"Well how was the police supposed to help anyway?!" Steve argued.

"That not an excuse for not contacting us when you needed us!" the woman on the phone said.

"Oh, so she's back in the conversation now! Nice of you to join us lady!" Steve was starting to lose it. The mafia was chasing after them with the intent of killing them, and all anyone really wanted to do at this point was to show him how this whole thing was HIS fault! Yeah, like he really needed that right now!

"I'm sorry sir, but we just received a number of calls informing us of a speeding limousine coming from a teppanyaki restaurant downtown and calls of immense gunfire coming from that same restaurant. Does this have anything to do with you?"

A big smile appeared on Asuka's face. "Yes! That has everything to do with us!"

"Alright, that narrows it down a bit. We'll help you out as much as we can!" A pause. "Um… did you get away from the mafia yet? It seems awfully quiet over there."

Asuka and Steve looked at each other. True, since the moment it started, this whole joyride has been completely mafia-free. Did they actually escape the mafia's clutches?

Just then, as if on cue, a bullet fired from behind the limo broke the limo's rear and front windshields, flying past both Asuka's and Steve's faces. Asuka screamed and Steve nearly swerved the limo right into a bus stop.

Upon hearing Asuka's scream and the limo's screeching tires, the woman on the other end seemed to understand the situation. "Okay, don't worry and stay calm! We'll be on our way as soon as we can! In the meantime, try to get away from them as best you can!" She hung up on them.

Steve looked at Asuka. "Alright, keep your head down and hold on tight! I'm gonna try and lose them!" Asuka nodded and did just that.

Steve stomped on the gas pedal and drove like a madman. He didn't have any real plan. He was just focusing on two things: get away and get away fast. Steve must've caused so many accidents to other vehicles on the road, made so much property damage, and probably damaged the limo beyond repair, but he didn't care. All he cared about right now was getting someplace safe, getting Asuka somewhere safe, and making sure Frank and Joe's sacrifices weren't in vain.

It was just too bad that the mafia didn't care at all. Steve wasn't used to driving a limo, and even if he was, the limo's size made it hard for him to maneuver at turns and around other cars, giving the mafia, in their smaller and more maneuverable cars, ample time to catch up little by little, and get close enough to comfortably fire at the limousine.

Despite the fact that Asuka was told to stay down, she snuck in a few glances behind them using the rear-view mirror. There were about three cars chasing after them from behind, with one driver and at least two shooters in each car. At one point, Asuka recognized one of the men shooting at them to be Lenny, one of the men from upstairs, and if he was now one of the men chasing after them, then that would mean….

"Oh Joe…," Asuka thought mournfully.

Suddenly, there was a loud pop and the limo abruptly fell. Asuka let out a little scream and put her arms over her face to prevent herself from getting potentially knocked out from the sudden fall.

She turned to Steve and asked, "What the heck just happened?!"

Steve looked through his rear-view side mirror. "They've hit our rear tires!"

"Which means?"

"To put it simply, they've slowed us down! They're gonna catch up to us if we don't do something quick!"

"Like what?"

Steve shook his head. "Your guess is as good as mine!" Steve surveyed his surroundings. The mafia may have been gaining on them little by little, but they were still a good distance away. If there was just some way they could block their path and get out of their sights then they'd be home free.

Just then, as they were passing a construction site, a crane carrying a big pile of steel for a building in construction suddenly lifted the steel above the street Steve and Asuka were driving on and released it, the steel landing directly behind the limousine with a deafening clack, creating a large wall of steel, cutting Asuka and Steve from their pursuers. After hearing and seeing this, Steve stepped on the brake pedal and Steve and Asuka looked behind them, amazed.

When the mafia saw that their path was blocked, they stomped on their brakes, making all three cars come to a screeching halt. They yelled briefly to one another and all agreed to go around the steel structure. They did just that, only to fall prey to the spike strip placed on the first available street around the steel structure, disabling their cars with a loud pop.

After Asuka and Steve heard the pop of their tires, they looked at each other, and Asuka asked, "What should we do now?"

Steve shook his head. "I don't know! It's too dangerous to just get out of the limo, but the limo's all banged up! I think it's as good as dead!"

Just then, the one operating the crane left it and ran up to the limousine. She ran up to Asuka's window and knocked on it, scaring Asuka and Steve a bit before Asuka rolled down the window to see a girl with short, blonde hair and blue eyes, wearing a red scarf, red and white jacket, blue jeans, a black buckled shirt, brown boots, and red gloves. She didn't look that much older than Asuka. "Need a hand?" she asked, giving the two a small, reassuring smile.

"Who are you?" Asuka asked, understandably suspicious and a little bit on edge at the moment.

She let out a little laugh and answered, "My name's Leo." She held out her hand so that Asuka could shake it. "Nice to meet you."

It took a moment before Asuka finally accepted the handshake. "Hi…," she said slowly, still not sure if Leo could be trusted.

Leo then got serious. "Listen, we need to get out of here, fast." She pointed to a car parked a little bit farther down the street. "That's my ride." She looked back at Steve. "Grab your keys and get out of the limo," she ordered. "You guys are riding with me." She saw the looks of uncertainty on their faces, so she smiled again and added, "Don't worry, I'm here to help!" When Asuka and Steve still looked unsure, she added, "Honestly, what have you got to lose?"

That was a good point. She had just helped them out in a big way and she didn't look like someone who would work with the mafia, and besides, she was only one person, if Asuka and Steve started getting suspicious they could just take her on themselves. Numbers were at least in their favor if they went with her. Besides, it was either a mysterious girl who was trying to help them or a group of angry, armed mafia members. Might as well take their chances with the girl.

They all ran to Leo's car and took their seats, Leo on the driver's seat, Steve on the front passenger's seat, and Asuka taking the seat directly behind Leo (just in case this Leo person wasn't the helpful person she claimed to be). Leo hit the gas pedal and they were off. For the most part, the entire drive was in silence, Asuka and Steve either suspicious about Leo or taking the time to recover from their eventful evening, and Leo either focusing on the road or becoming strangely quiet towards them. The only time she did talk was when she called the police and told them where they could find and arrest the mafia members.

Finally, Leo pulled over and parked in front of a motel a good distance away from the teppanyaki restaurant. "This is it," she said. She got out of the car and was about to walk up the stairs to the second floor, but realized that Steve and Asuka weren't following her, so she looked back at her car and asked, "You coming or what?"

Steve looked at Asuka, who simply shrugged. They followed her upstairs and into a room that, they assumed, was hers. "Make yourselves at home," she said.

Asuka looked around. It looked like an ordinary motel room except for a backpack on the bed and a laptop on the table. "You travel pretty light," Asuka said.

"Have to," Leo said, going to her backpack. "My line of work forces me to move around a lot."

Asuka let out a good-humored laugh. "So what… you're some kind of secret agent or something?"

Leo froze for a bit before recovering, looking up, giving them a quick smile and answering, "You could say that." She fumbled through her backpack. "I've actually been working on a case for some time now. I came here to get some information, but then the police got your call and they sent me to go and help you guys out."

"Well, you did a good job," Steve said. "Thank you. I don't know what we would've done without your help." He went to the window and took a peek through the curtain, looking down at the front of the motel. "You really think we'll be safe here?" he asked.

"I think so," Leo said. "The limo was the only thing that they could track you with, and you left it at the construction site; and they don't know anything about me, so even if they did see my car out in front, they wouldn't think anything of it."

Asuka let out a low, impressed whistle. "Awesome," she said. She then grabbed the remote for the T.V., sat down on the bed and turned the T.V. on.

Steve gave her an incredulous look. "How can you be watching T.V. at a time like this?!"

"I need a distraction," Asuka answered. "I could honestly go for anything right now. A comedy, a cartoon, heck, I'll even take some terrible reality T.V., anything to take my mind off of this crazy evening." She continued to flip through channels until she saw something that caught her eye. "Hey look!" she cried, pointing at the screen. "That's our limo!"

Steve's eyes widened (and unbeknownst to them, so did Leo's). He stood next to Asuka and looked at the screen, one hand supporting his elbow as he held his chin with his other hand. "They're already talking about us, are they?" Asuka shushed him and they both turned their undivided attention to the T.V.

The reporter was a middle-aged, white man in a black jacket. He had brown hair, with bits of gray here and there and he looked a bit on the chubby side. They had tuned in on the middle of his report. "There is still yet to be any sign of boxer Steve Fox or his female friend but police told us that they will do whatever they can to find them."

The screen then cut to the reporter interviewing a police officer. The police officer was black and bald and had a thin black beard. "We don't know where they are, but rest assured, we will find them," the officer said into the microphone.

The microphone was then pointed towards the screen. The reporter was going to ask a question. "Do you think that maybe the mafia had anything to do with this?" The microphone was then aimed back to the police officer. The bottom of the screen showed his name to be Officer Daniel Freeman.

Officer Freeman shook his head. "We thought about it, and we're pretty sure that if the mafia had found them, then we'd find their bodies somewhere, or at least some remains, like blood, on the ground. It was obvious that, based on the reports about them shooting at the limo that Mr. Fox and his friend was in and the dead bodies of Mr. Fox's bodyguards left in the Japanese restaurant, that they were chasing him with the intent of killing him."

The microphone went back towards the camera. "So there's still hope that they're still alive?"

Back to Officer Freeman. He nodded. "Yes, until we find any proof, we assume and hope that they're still alive."

Back to the camera. "Thank you Officer Freeman. One more question. What do you think caused the steel to fall from the crane near the spot where the limo was, and do you think it had anything to do with the spike strip you found?"

Back to Officer Freeman. He shook his head. "We honestly don't know. Obviously that spike strip had to have been placed there by someone, but whoever it was, we don't know. Obviously it helped us catch a couple of mafia members, but we hope that whoever did it isn't dangerous or isn't a criminal, because spike strip is very dangerous and it's obviously not something that a normal person would have, let alone use on a city street, so we're hoping that that person had good intentions when placing it down."

Back to the camera. "And even if it was placed with good intentions in mind, this had to be planned beforehand, correct?"

Back to Officer Freeman. He nodded. "Yes, and that really seems unlikely, you know, to catch criminals using a spike strip when they had other streets to choose from."

Back to the camera. "So what would you call the events of today?"

Back to Officer Freeman. "Um…," he thought about it for a second, before answering, "probably dumb luck at best, because when you get right down to it, everything that happened to make the spike strip work was extremely unlikely, not unless it was planned, which, as we've already established, was also highly unlikely due to the speed of the chase."

Back to the camera. "Okay. Thank you Officer Freeman."

"You're welcome."

Asuka turned the T.V. off. Asuka and Steve looked at each other, their eyes wide and their mouths agape. "They don't know what happened to us," Asuka said.

"Well maybe they want to keep things private until they can all sort this out," Steve suggested. "And she did say that she was kind of a secret agent."

"Yeah, but this is public news about the mafia!" Asuka reasoned. "Wouldn't 'Mafia Thwarted Today' be a better story to put on live T.V.? Wouldn't the police want to brag about how they sent one of their best guys in to single-handedly save people targeted by the mafia and say that she succeeded in keeping them safe and was skilled enough to pull this type of maneuver?"

Steve pondered over her words for a moment. "Well it's either they don't want criminals knowing that they have special guys to ruin their plans, or…-"

They heard a click of a gun near the door. "She's not working for the authorities." Asuka and Steve slowly turned towards the door to see Leo pointing a gun at them and glaring at them.

As Asuka tried to stand up, Leo quickly pointed the gun in her direction. Asuka put her hands up, indicating that she wasn't going to be any trouble. "I'm not going to do anything," Asuka said, as calmly as she could, "I just want to know how you did it."

Leo reached into her jacket and pulled out binoculars and a small device. "I already had Steve Fox in my sights," she shook the small device in front of them, "and this baby lets me listen to all radio transmissions. I was alerted of what was going on through the police's radio and used my binoculars to see where you were headed. I drove to your predicted route and used my hook shot to get around and set up a spike strip and get to the crane's controls," she showed them her aforementioned hook-shot, which was a device on her right wrist, "and waited for you to pass so that I could drop all that steel on the road, forcing your pursuers to go straight towards the spike strip. Then, as I put you both in a false state of security, I took you to a place where I could do what I came here to do in private, without any interruptions."

"Yeah," Steve said, "but you called the police! They'll track us down eventually!"

Leo pulled out her cell phone and shook her head. "Built in voice-changer. I can always get another one and I expect we'll get this over with before they find us." She then broke her phone in half and threw the pieces to the side.

Asuka gulped. "How… methodical of you."

"Thank you," Leo humored.

"Okay, now that we got that out of the way," Steve said, "what is it that you want from me?!"

Leo gave him a fierce glare, pointed her gun at him, and answered, "Take it off."

Asuka and Steve's eyes grew wide. "Excuse me?" Steve asked.

"Take it off," Leo repeated. "Everything from the waist up. Take it off."

A brief pause, before Asuka let out an annoyed huff and said, "Oh for Pete's sake, he's a world famous boxer! If you want shirtless pictures of him then just go on the Internet! They're literally right there! For free too!"

Steve looked at her wildly. "You're looked up shirtless pictures of me?!"

Asuka looked disgusted. "No! Of course not! There're always shirtless pictures of celebrities on the Internet. You just go to , go to Images, and type in…-"

"Quiet!" Leo cried. Asuka and Steve froze. "That's not the reason why I'm doing this! That's not even close!"

"Really?" Steve asked, sounding disappointed.

Asuka gave him a look of disgust. "Why do you care?!"

Steve scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Well, you know, I'm a guy who just happens to be a celebrity, and, well, when two attractive, young girls say that they don't look up pictures of you shirtless… I don't know, there's something… disheartening about it."

Asuka shook her head and rubbed her eyes. "I can't believe this."

"Hey!" Leo cried, looking a little hysterical at the moment. "I'm pointing a gun at you right now! Stop talking so casually amongst yourselves!"

Steve and Asuka looked down and muttered, "Sorry."

"Gah!" Leo screamed, clawing her hair. "You're doing it again! What, am I not threatening enough to you or something?!"

Steve and Asuka casually looked her over and shook their heads. "No," Asuka said, "you're not."

"Hwoarang's more threatening than you," Steve added, with a nod.

Asuka looked at him, surprised. "You know Hwoarang?"

Steve looked at her. "Rough-around-the-edges Korean? Get the feeling that he's a good guy once you get to know him but he's just so cocky and arrogant that you hardly ever want to get near him?"

Asuka laughed and smiled. "That's the one! How do you know him?"

Steve shrugged. "We tagged once."

Asuka raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Really? When?"

Steve cringed at the memory of Hwoarang and him running for their lives in the Arctic. "I'd rather not talk about it."

"Hello?!" Leo cried, shaking her gun in front of their faces. "What am I?! Chopped liver?!"

"Sorry," Asuka said. "But in all honesty, you're just not that threatening."

"Oh really?" Leo asked, walking up to her and aiming her gun point blank at Steve's forehead. "Well what about now?" Steve and Asuka took a moment to take it all in, but when they did, they shook their heads. Leo couldn't believe it. "Really?!"

Asuka nodded. "Really," she confirmed. "Especially when…." She quickly kicked the gun out of Leo's hand, sending it flying into the air. Leo was about to try and catch it, but Steve held her down as Asuka leapt up, caught the gun, and then aimed it at Leo. "Ha! Who's threatening who now?!"

Leo forced Steve off and quickly swiped the gun back. "Who's threatening who now?!" Leo mocked.

Steve took the gun out of Leo's hands. "Alright, this is obviously not going to get us anywhere, so maybe we should stop this silliness and -" Leo stole the gun back and pointed it at Steve.

"Steve!" Asuka berated, high kicking Leo in the face, making her fall back against the T.V., and forcing her to drop the gun.

Steve grabbed the gun off the floor. "What?" Steve asked.

"You can't go easy on her just because she's a girl! She's trying to threaten us with a gun for crying out loud!"

Steve shook his head. "I don't hit women. Not unless it's a scheduled match in a tournament or -" Leo kicked Steve right in the jaw and stole her gun back, "that," Steve groaned, painfully holding his jaw.

Asuka jumped off the bed and performed a 360 degree vertical, downward kick on Leo's head, dazing Leo enough to make her drop the gun on the floor. Asuka was going to dive for it, but Leo had recovered by then, and had gotten in her way by crouching down and blocking Asuka's only way to dive for the gun. She then went back up and tried to hit Asuka with a jab, but Asuka dodged it and tried to hit Leo with a punch of her own, but Leo diverted it to the side and hit Asuka with three powerful, consecutive jabs to the face, and would've hit Asuka with a forward elbow too, if Asuka didn't had the wherewithal to quickly block it.

"You're pretty good," Asuka said, wiping the side of her mouth with her wrist.

Leo shook her head to shake off the pain in her head. "You're not so bad yourself."

"You must really want what you came here to do, going through all this trouble just to get a gun back and all."

Leo clenched her fists. "You have no idea."

"Well that's a shame," Steve said behind them. "Because now there's no gun." Leo and Asuka looked to see that Steve, in the time that they were fighting, had somehow managed to take apart the gun. He was holding the gun's magazine away from reach.

Asuka eyes widened as she smiled. "Since when did you know how to take apart a gun?"

Steve sighed. "Joe wouldn't let me take a step outside my house otherwise." He then turned his attention back to Leo. "Now why don't you tell us what you came here for? Without the gun?"

For a moment, Leo didn't know what to do. At first, she just glared at Steve, but then after a long moment of silence, she sighed and asked, "You have a scar on your left arm, don't you?"

Steve nodded. "Yeah, what about it?"

"May I see it?"

Steve looked at her suspiciously. "Why?" he asked.

"Let me examine it first. If I told you and it's not the scar I'm looking for, then you'd know things that you'd be better off not knowing in the first place."

Steve looked at Asuka for a little bit of guidance. She shrugged. He looked back at Leo. "Is it serious?"

Leo shook her head. "Not to you."

Another moment of silence between the three of them. "Alright then," Steve said. He took off his clothes from the waist up and let Leo examine the scar on his left arm.

Leo examined it for a moment and then went to her laptop and typed a few things. A picture appeared on the screen. She examined the picture, then took one last look at Steve's scar and mumbled to herself, "There's no doubt about it. It's obviously gotten bigger as time went on, but there's no mistaking it."

Asuka walked up to Leo and looked over her shoulder to see what she was looking at. "There's no mistaking what?" she asked.

Leo showed Steve the picture that she was looking at. "Your scar matches NT01's scar."

Steve looked at the picture. It was true, the scar in the picture look exactly like his scar. "Okay then," he said, "but who's this NT01?" It sounded familiar, but he couldn't quite put his finger on why.

Leo shook her head. "No one knows," she said. "But according to these records, he kept demanding scientists who called him that to call him 'Steve'."

Asuka and Steve eyes widened. "He… wanted to be called 'Steve'?" Steve repeated.

Leo nodded. "That's right."

There was an awkward silence that lasted for a full minute before Asuka asked, "What else do you know about NT01?"

Leo kept her eyes on Steve as she explained to Asuka, "NT01 was one of many humans created by the Mishima Financial Group -"

"Wait!" Steve cried, his eyes wide, sweat falling down his forehead. "Did you just say he was a creation of the Mishima Financial Group?!"

Leo eyed him suspiciously. "Yes." After a long moment of not saying anything, Steve shook his head and signaled her to go on. "Like I was saying, NT01 was one of many humans created by the Mishima Financial Group through in-vitro fertilization through women used in cryogenic research. They were created in order to be test subjects for the conglomerate's Devil Gene program."

The moment Leo said "Devil Gene program" Steve suddenly felt a sudden, large surge of pain coming from his scar. The pain was so great that he started losing his balance, which made him fall to the ground, the only thing supporting him being one of his knees as he clutched his arm, the pain becoming almost unbearable. In moments he was in a puddle of sweat, groaning in pain and slowly starting to lose consciousness.

Asuka ran up to him and, through concern, touched him on his shoulder and asked, "Hey, are you alright? What's wrong?" Unbeknownst to everyone, a light came from Asuka's hands and spread throughout Steve's body. Slowly, but surely, the pain slowly started to go away, and Steve could feel something soothing and warm replacing it and coursing through his body, though he didn't know what it was, nor could he quite explain it.

He started to regain his normal breathing pattern and his consciousness, and when it came back one hundred percent, he answered, "Yeah, yeah, I'm alright. My scar was just hurt for a moment, that's all."

"Are you sure? You look pretty bad right now."

Steve shook his head and gently forced her hand off his shoulder and sat down on the bed. "Don't worry. I'm fine, honest. The pain's all gone now." He moved his arm a bit. "Almost feels as good as new actually." He sounded genuinely surprised, so Asuka sighed and left it at that.

Leo's eyes narrowed. "Anyway," she continued, "the Mishima Financial Group found out that the cells of the Devil Gene merge together with a normal person's cells, so they created a synthetic strand to use and test it on. The program was a test to see what would happen when humans are injected with this strand."

"And?" Asuka quietly asked, knowing full well that that couldn't have been the end of the story.

Leo sighed. "The program was eventually canceled after various fatalities of the test subjects."

Asuka and Steve's eyes widened. "Wait," Asuka said, "so… they're all… dead?"

Leo nodded. "Yes, everyone died."

Both Asuka and Steve gasped. "That's… so sad," Asuka said.

Steve breathed in deeply and let it out just as deeply. "Yeah," he said. Despite this however, a part of him was actually relieved. For a second there he really thought that HE was NT01. And could you really blame him? Up until this point, everything Leo said seemed to be pointing to him.

"However," Leo added, "the body of NT01 was never found."

Dang it!

"One of the scientists looking after NT01 reported his death, but it was reported by another scientist that there was no proof to support her claim. NT01 was the only test subject who survived the initial trials of testing, so when it was reported that NT01 was dead, the program was then official scrapped."

After a long silence, Steve finally had the courage to ask, "What does… NT01 look like?"

Leo went back to her computer and did some typing and clicking, and eventually found the file with the only full-body picture of NT01. She then (without Asuka and Steve noticing) adjusted the tab so that the person in the picture with NT01 would be obstructed from view. She then stepped aside and showed Steve and Asuka the photo. "This is it," she said. Steve and Asuka moved up to see the photo, and Steve couldn't believe his eyes. Leo then added, "He was six years old when that photo was taken."

Steve looked at her, his eyes almost bulging out of his head. "This photo was taken when he was six?" he asked frantically.

Leo's eyed him suspiciously, her eyes narrowing even more than before. "Yes."

"And how old was he when he was reported dead?"

"Six," Leo answered simply.

Steve looked back at the photo and stared at it, as he muttered, "I was six when the orphanage found me. And he looks just like me when I was at that age." He shook his head. "It all fits."

Leo's eyes widened as Asuka asked, "What fits?"

Steve shook his head again. "Everything." He looked at Asuka and said, "I think… I… am NT01."

Both Asuka and Leo's eyes widened. "But… how is that possible?! Yeah sure, you're both males with blonde hair and blue eyes, the same freakishly large scar on your left arms and you're both named 'Steve', but that could just be a freak coincidence! NT01 was a human created by the Mishima Financial Group!"

"And so am I!" Steve cried, pointing at himself. The room became completely silent as Asuka and Leo's eyes grew wider. Steve sighed and explained, "I learned a year ago that I was a creation of the Mishima Financial Group. I even went out of my way to find the exact lab that created me and destroyed it with my own bare hands." Steve shook his head. "I never learned the details though." He looked at Leo. "Until now. Thank you."

Leo breathed deeply, regaining her composure, before saying, "You're welcome."

Just then, Asuka was hit with a sudden realization. "Wait!" she cried. "If NT01 was reported dead by a scientist and if Steve really is NT01, then that would mean that the scientist who reported that Steve was dead actually lied!" She thought it over for a bit. "But why would he do that?"

Leo shrugged. "Who knows? Oh, and by the way," she fixed the tab of the photo on the computer so that they could see the scientist standing behind NT01 in the picture, "that scientist was a she."

Asuka and Steve looked at the revised picture and Steve (again) couldn't believe his eyes. "E-Emma?!"

"So you DO know her!" Leo cried, quickly grabbing Steve and slamming him against the wall, and holding him there. "What happened to her?!"

"Wait a minute!" Asuka cried. "What's going on here?!"

While keeping her eyes on Steve as she held him against the wall, Leo answered, "The scientist in the picture's name is Emma Kliesen! My full name is Leo Kliesen! Emma was my mother!"

Steve and Asuka's eyes widened. "You… were Emma's daughter?" Steve asked.

Leo nodded furiously. "Yes! My mother was once a supervisor for the Mishima Financial Group's Devil Gene Program!" Leo looked down, a tinge of sadness in her eyes. "She was killed by an unknown assailant sixteen years ago!" She glared at Steve. "How old are you?!"

"I'm, uh… twenty-two," Steve said, not entirely sure on how he was supposed to answer that question.

"If you're twenty-two," Leo explained, "then that means that when my mother died, you would've been six! That's the same age as when NT01 was reported dead and when you were found by your orphanage!"

"Wait a minute," Asuka said. "Where are you going with all this?"

"I'm saying that I think that my mother risked her life to save yours!" Leo cried, looking Steve right in the eye. "For one reason or another, she wanted to save you, to save you from the Devil Gene Program, to save you from the Mishima Financial Group!" Leo's eyes were starting to get watery. "And she paid the ultimate price!"

Steve pondered on this for a second and then remembered what Emma had said to him once. "That actually does make sense," he said softly. "She told me once how she didn't want me to get involved in 'this'. I guess the 'this' she was talking about was the Devil Gene Program."

"Then it all fits," Leo said. "Now tell me… what happened to her?"

Steve's eyes widened. "W-what?"

"What happened to her?!" Leo cried. "What happened to my mother?!" When Steve didn't answer, Leo added, "The time you were reported dead was before the time you were officially registered into the orphanage! I did my research, I should know! I knew it all along! I just wanted you to confirm all of this information! Now tell me! Tell me what happened to my mother! You should know, you were one of the last people to see her before she died, you have to know!"

Steve could see how desperate she was right now. She must've gone through so much just to get this far, and a part of Steve didn't want to tell her the truth, but he knew that sending her into a wild goose chase wasn't going to help anyone, especially her. After a moment of hesitation, Steve reluctantly answered, "I…," he sighed, "I'm sorry Leo, but… I don't know."

It looked like Leo wasn't going to take that as an answer. "Don't you say that! Don't you dare say that!" she cried. She then added, "Please, you don't even have to know what exactly happened to her! Just give me a lead, a clue, anything! Just give me something I can work with! Please, just help me find my mother's murderer!"

Steve looked away. "I'm sorry. I want to help you, really, I do! But…," Steve shook his head bitterly, "I can't remember anything! I just woke up in an orphanage one day and my memories were wiped clean or something! I only just remembered Emma recently!"

"No!" Leo screamed, slamming Steve hard against the wall again. She struggled to regain her composure, and growled, "I did not get chased by the G-Corporation's men, steal top-secret information from the G-Corporation and the Mishima Financial Group, and get involved in a chase with the mafia, only to come up with... with…," she looked angrily at Steve, "nothing!" She punched him hard across the face.

Asuka was about to intervene, but Steve stopped her, and said, while wincing in pain, "She… was the only one… who was ever nice to me. She… was the only one… who'd call me 'Steve'. She was… the only thing… that kept me sane… during all those days they were testing on me." He looked at Leo straight in the eye. "If I had found out sooner that she had died and that someone had killed her, and if I knew where to look or had a clue to go with, believe me, I'd hunt the guy down myself. But I don't… I'm sorry."

"Then I'll make you remember!" Leo cried, raising her fist in order to punch him again, but Asuka stopped her.

"How is punching him going to help him remember?!" Asuka cried, a stern look on her face.

"Shut up!" Leo countered, throwing Steve against the wall again. "This doesn't concern you!"

"Considering the fact that I'm in the room and you rescued me alongside with Steve, yeah, I think it does concern me!" Asuka ran up to her, preparing to attack.

Leo dodged the attack and it almost looked like Asuka was going to hit Steve instead, but Asuka, anticipating Leo's dodge, stopped herself mid-punch, a proud smile on her face. "Ha! I knew you'd dodge that!" She turned around to face Leo, only to fall victim to a powerful elbow to the head, knocking her against Steve, sandwiching Steve against the wall.

"And I knew that you'd know that I'd do that!" Leo cried, as she kneed the disoriented Asuka in the stomach. Asuka clutched her stomach and groaned in pain as Leo threw her to the side, grabbed Steve, and threw him to the floor behind her. While he was writhing in pain from the fall, Leo took the opportunity to steal back the parts of the gun and put the gun back together. She pointed the reassembled gun at Steve's head. "Maybe a near-death-experience will help you jog your memory!"

Steve rolled his eyes up to see the gun. He was sweating profusely and he looked absolutely terrified. "I'm definitely having a near-death-experience right now," he said, but shook his head and added, "but I can't remember anything!"

"Then try harder!" Leo cried, jamming the gun against Steve's forehead.

"Stop it!" Asuka cried, trying her best to get back on her feet from the knee to the stomach, using the bed as a crutch. "What you're doing isn't fair! If he can't remember then he can't remember!"

Leo looked at her from the corner of her eye. "Shut up and stay out of this!" she screamed. She turned back to Leo. "You have to remember," she cried. "You just have to!" Her voice was cracking now and she was losing face. "Please!" Tears were forming at the edge of her eyes. "This is the only lead I have! It can't run dry! Not now! Not when I'm so close!"

Steve stared up at the vulnerable, shaky, desperate Leo for a while before shaking his head sadly and saying, "I'm sorry… I really am."

Leo furiously shook her head, the tears running down her face. "No…," she slowly made her way to the bed and sat down, "no, no, no, no, no!" She brought her knees up on the bed and hugged her legs, crying into her knees. "This can't be happening! This just can't!"

Steve and Asuka looked at each other, Steve obviously not knowing what to do at the moment. Asuka nodded towards Leo, telling him silently to go up to Leo and console her.

"Me?!" Steve asked through his facial expressions. "Why me?! Isn't this your kind of thing?!"

"Yeah, but even I know when to step back when I need to!" Asuka argued (with her facial expressions).

Steve didn't seem to understand. "What?!"

"You're more a part of this than I am and you have more of a relationship with Leo than I do! That makes you the perfect candidate for this particular situation!"

"Are you crazy?!" Steve cried silently. "I have no experience with this type of thing, especially with girls! And she threatened to kill me just a few seconds ago! And look," he pointed at the gun still in Leo's hands, "she still has the gun!"

"Oh man up!"

Steve realized that there was no way out of this, so he slowly stood up, dusted himself off, walked up to the bed, and took a seat next to Leo. He took one last nervous glance at Asuka before clearing his throat and asking, "So… um… are you alright?"

Leo shook her head. "No, I'm not." She wiped her face with her free hand and explained, "I thought that this was it, you know? That I was finally going to do it, that I was finally going to find my mother's murderer. But it was a dead-end," she shook her head again and covered her face with her knees, "and I don't know where else to look!"

Steve glanced nervously at Asuka. Asuka mimed for him to put his arm around her shoulder and comfort her. Steve, though slowly and awkwardly, did just that. "Come on," he said soothingly, giving Leo's shoulder a little squeeze, "you can't beat yourself up like this. It's not healthy."

Leo wiped her tears away again and asked, "Then what should I do?"

Steve's eyes widened. He wasn't expecting a question, or rather, he wasn't prepared for one. "Well," he said, racking his brain for any ideas or answers, "you could always start over. It's never easy, but that's something, right?"

Leo shrugged. "I guess."

"Either that or… quit all together."

"What!" Leo cried. "How can you say that?!"

Steve raised his hands up, trying to calm her down a bit. "Now just hear me out for a second!" When Leo finally calmed down, angrily glaring at Steve, her eyes red and still a little watery, Steve explained, "Look, I get it! She was your mother and she was important to you! It's obvious that you'd want to avenge her death! I would've wanted to avenge her too if I had known sooner! She was the only one who cared about me back when I was a lab rat for the Mishima Financial Group! She was kind, loving, and beautiful from the inside out! She thought about others more than she did herself! … And that's why I think maybe we should quit this whole 'avenging' business and just move on with our lives."

Leo still didn't get it. "What?"

Steve sighed, and explained, "When I was still a lab rat for the Mishima Financial Group, she told me that she was sorry, that she never wanted me to get involved in whatever business they were doing. She wanted the very best for me, and I wasn't even her child." Steve looked at Leo. "But you are. She probably cared more about you than anyone in the entire world. She would've wanted the best for you. She would've wanted you to have a better life than," he gestured around the entire motel room, "this, just like she wanted me to have a better life than being a test subject for the Mishima Financial Group's experiments." As he saw Leo deep in thought, Steve added, "I think… as long as we're alive and safe… as long as we're happy…up there," he looked up at the ceiling, and Leo followed his gaze, "I think she'd be happy. I think that she wouldn't care if she was avenged or not, just that her one-and-only child was safe and happy." Steve looked back at Leo and gave her a small smile. "Am I right?"

Leo slowly looked back at Steve, a small smile slowly forming on her face. "Yes. That sounds just like her."

"Then tell me. Are you happy?"

Leo thought for a moment, before slowly shaking her head and saying, "Honestly? I can think of other, better things that I'd rather be doing right now."

Steve smiled. "Well, now you have a choice. Heck, you always had a choice. You can either start over your search for Emma's murderer or you can put all of this behind you, live your life, and try to live happily for your mother. Now I don't know about Asuka over there, but I'll support you either way."

For some reason, Leo felt inclined to seek Asuka's opinion on the matter and looked at her for any type of guidance. When Asuka realized that Leo was staring at her, Asuka, after a moment's hesitation, shrugged and simply said, "Doesn't matter to me." She then thought about it for a little bit more and added firmly, "Unless you're going to kill someone. That's where I draw the line. Got it?" She gave Leo a little smile.

Leo smiled back and nodded in understanding. "Makes sense."

Steve smiled as he saw the girls slowly becoming friendlier with one another. "All right then," he said, "what's your decision gonna be?"

"Whoa!" Asuka cried, placing her hands on her hips and giving Steve a disapproving look. "You want her to make her decision now?! Geez, no pressure or anything!"

"All I'm saying is that she can make her decision now if she wants to!"

"It's okay Asuka," Leo said, giving her a reassuring smile. "I've actually made my decision."

Asuka and Steve's eyes widened. "You have?" Steve asked incredulously.

Leo nodded, and, without looking either of them in the eye, answered, "I REALLY love spelunking and I'd REALLY love to get back to that, but…," she sighed sadly, "I don't know… for some reason I just feel like finding my mother's murderer isn't just something I WANT to do, but something I NEED to do." Leo put her hands in her hair as she ruffled it furiously as she tried to find the right words to explain what she meant. "It's like… it's like…."

"It's like a journey of self-discovery?" Asuka suggested. She took a seat next to Leo. "You want to know what you'll do when you finally find him."

"And what makes you think it's a 'him'?!" Steve playfully scolded. He sighed and shook his head, but a smile crept onto his face. "After seeing what the two of you can do I wouldn't be surprised if the killer was a 'she'!"

Asuka and Leo each let out a laugh before Leo redirected the conversation back to its original topic. "Anyway," she turned to Asuka, "yes, that's exactly what I mean." She placed her chin on her knees and smiled. "I appreciate what you two have taught me and I'll definitely take it to heart." She looked at Asuka. "And I promise, no killing. If anything, I'll just bring him to justice. That's all."

Asuka nodded approvingly. "Good."

Steve smiled, and put his arm around Leo and said, "Real good. And I promise that if I find out anything, you'll be the first one I talk to. And if you need anything, I'll do my best to hook you up."

Leo smiled at him. "Really? You'd do that?" she asked.

Steve nodded. "Why wouldn't I? Emma was practically my mother too!" He playfully nudged her. "We're practically family, you and I!"

Leo thought about it for a moment. "Family huh?" She let out a small laugh. "It's been so long since the last time I was with a member of my family."

Steve sighed. "You and me both kiddo." He then had an idea. "Well let's add that to the list of promises then!" he said. "If you ever want to talk with me, I'll talk with you as soon as I possibly can, because, well, you know, boxing career and all. We can talk about anything you want."

Leo's eyes grew wide. "Really?" she asked.

Steve nodded. "Why not? Just give me your number and I'll give you mine! Heck, I might just call you up once and a while myself! Gets pretty lonesome all by myself, being a celebrity and all."

He was obviously joking about that last part, but while Leo and Steve were exchanging their cell-phone numbers, Asuka decided to play along. "Oh please!" she cried, as she reached over and lightly punched him on the arm. "Celebrity my butt! There were absolutely no paparazzi at that teppanyaki restaurant! And like you said," she brought Leo close and pointed at the two of them, "two attractive, young women don't even look up pictures of you shirtless on the Internet! At this rate, I'm more famous than you back at my place!"

The three of them laughed for a good while. As Leo's laughing finally subsided, she looked at the two people sitting next to her and wondered, "When was the last time I laughed like this? It feels like forever." She laid her chin down on her knees again and smiled. "Mother," she thought, "was this your doing? Did you lead me to them so that I could have a moment of happiness?" Like always, no answer came.

At that moment, Asuka decided it was time to address the elephant in the room. "So," she began, "we're all friends now, right?"

Leo looked at her, a little confused at first, but then smiled and nodded. "Of course," she answered.

"And you have nothing against us anymore, right?" Asuka continued.

Leo frowned. Where was she going with this? "Yes."

"Then," Asuka looked down and pointed to the gun still in Leo's hand, "can you please put that away? Nothing personal or anything, it's just that, in a friend's hands or not, a gun in the room is always kind of scary, you know?" Asuka let out a weak laugh.

Leo looked at the gun for a moment before she burst out laughing again. Steve and Asuka looked at each other, confused. "What's so funny?" Steve asked. A part of him wasn't sure if he wanted to know the answer to that question.

Leo regained her composure and opened the gun, attempting to unload it. "Because," she said, as she held the gun in front of them to show them that it was empty, "it was never loaded to begin with!"

Asuka and Steve looked at each other in disbelief. "Well what do you know?" Steve muttered.

"She faked us out!" Asuka muttered. The two fell back on the bed and lay there, staring at the ceiling in wonder. "She was threatening to kill us… with an empty gun!"

"I had my life flash before my eyes," Steve muttered, "when my life wasn't even threatened to begin with."

"Aw come on guys!" Leo cried, letting out a small, good-natured chuckle and smile. "I can't go around killing more people than I should! I'm already wanted by the police for what I did to the Mishima Financial Group and the G-Corporation! Killing people left and right would attract too much unwanted attention!"

As if on cue, the three heard police sirens blaring outside. Asuka went up and peered through the window's curtains. She let out a low whistle. "Four police cars up in front and they've cut off the entire area." She looked at Steve and pointed at the door. "You mind going out and explaining the situation to them Steve?"

Steve sighed, rolled himself off of the bed and lazily said, "Yeah, they're probably looking for me anyway. If I go out first, that'll at least put their worries at ease." He went out of the motel room to see eight armed police officers positioned behind their police cars. He raised his hands up. "Don't worry!" he cried. "I'm not hurt, I'm all right!"

The head police officer, who was, coincidentally, Officer Daniel Freeman, let out a relieved sigh and yelled to his fellow officers, "He says he's alright!" He turned his attention back to Steve. "Mr. Fox, if you would please walk down here if you can."

Steve nodded and did just that. "Like I said, I'm alright officer. Sorry to make you all worry like this."

Officer Freeman gave him a surprised look. "You're doing fairly well for a man who's just escaped certain death from the mafia."

Steve scratched his head. "Yeah, well, it wasn't easy, I'll tell you that."

Officer Freeman nodded and looked up at the motel room Steve had just walked out of. "I assume someone helped you get away?"

Steve nodded. "Yeah. Listen," he walked up to Officer Freeman and whispered, "she's been through a lot and apparently she's involved with stealing stuff from the Mishima Financial Group and G-Corporation, but deep down, she's a nice kid. Is it okay if you don't arrest her?"

Officer Freeman sighed. "We'll probably have to take her in for questioning, but if it's not too serious and they don't press charges, then I might be able to pull a few strings."

Steve let out a sigh of relief. "Thank you officer."

Officer Freeman nodded and signaled for three of his fellow police officers to go inside and investigate the motel room and another one to question the motel's manager on who had rented the room beforehand; however, while this was all happening, Leo, when she saw that the police officers had diverted their attention to the talk between Steve and Officer Freeman, quickly left the scene and escaped as fast as she could.

Before she had left however, Asuka had grabbed her arm and stopped her. "Hey," she hissed, "what do you think you're doing?!"

Leo gave Asuka an apologetic smile and gently pried Asuka's hand off of her arm. "Asuka, I can't let the authorities take me in. I can't. I just can't. It'll interfere with my search."

"And it might not! Who knows?! The authorities might be able to help!"

"Asuka," Leo reasoned gently, "it's the Mishima Financial Group and the G-Corporation. I'm pretty sure they'll want payback for the information I stole from them."

Asuka let out a defeated sigh. "Yeah… you're probably right about that," she said glumly.

Leo smiled. "Say 'good-bye' to Steve for me," she said as she successfully fled the scene.

Asuka smiled and shook her head. "The things I do for people sometimes," she said to herself.

Just then, the police had finally entered Leo's motel room. One of the police officers took Asuka downstairs. "Sir," he said, "this girl was in the same room as Mr. Fox."

Officer Freeman looked at Steve. "This the one who was with you in the limo?"

Steve was just about to answer his question, but just then, he was interrupted by the two other police officers who had gone into the room and were coming downstairs. "Sir," a female police officer cried, "we found this stuff in the same room!"

Officer Freeman turned his attention to them. "What kind of stuff?" he asked.

"Well," the other police officer said, "we found this gun, this laptop with, apparently, top-secret information from the Mishima Financial Group and the G-Corporation, and a backpack full of," he fumbled through it and shook his head, "stuff that I'm pretty sure isn't legal."

Just then, the officer that had gone to find out who had purchased that particular motel room jogged up to them and cried, "The manager doesn't know what we're talking about! He said that that room hasn't been rented for over a week now!"

Officer Freeman's eyes narrowed and he looked suspiciously at Asuka. He returned his attention back to Steve and repeated his previous question. "This the one who was with you in the limo?"

"Actually -" Steve was about to tell them that Asuka was in the limo with him and that they were both saved and that all that stuff belonged to Leo, but stopped himself and remembered all the stuff that Leo said she did, and realized that maybe telling the police who she was probably wasn't the best idea. "She's the one who saved me from the mafia." Steve nodded. "Yep. My friend and I got separated after she saved me. She left my friend back there to fend for herself. Apparently she's part of the yakuza."

Asuka did a double-take. "Wait, WHAT?!"

Every police officer's eyes widened as Officer Freeman shook his head and sighed. "This just got a whole lot more complicated." He turned to the police officer who had escorted Asuka downstairs. "Take her downtown."

Asuka wiggled madly as the police officer forcibly escorted her to the backseat of one of the police cars. "Hey!" she cried. "What's the big idea?!"

"You've got some explaining to do," Officer Freeman explained, and, as if on cue, the police officer finally managed to get Asuka inside the police vehicle and slammed the door shut. Officer Freeman turned his attention back to Steve. "We have to take you downtown too. You know, to explain what happened and whatnot."

Steve nodded. "I understand." Officer Freeman nodded and walked up to his fellow police officers to discuss what to do next.

As they were having their discussion, Steve slowly made his way to the police car holding Asuka and peered into it. "Strange," he thought, "I can't see her anywhere." He knocked on the window with his knuckles. "Asuka?" he whispered. "Are you in there?"

Just then, seemingly out of nowhere, Asuka banged her face against the window and screamed, "I… WILL… MURDER YOU!"

After jumping a good deal back from Asuka's sudden scare, Steve shushed her and whispered, "Look, I know you're angry at me, but I was only trying to help protect Leo, you know that!"

"Idiot!" Asuka cried. "You could've protected her without getting me arrested!"

"I know!" Steve said. "But don't worry! I'll explain everything to them at the police station!"

Asuka stared at him for a moment before she burst out laughing. "Ha! That's a laugh!" She gave him a cocky, evil grin. "I'd sure like to see how you explain to the police why you WILLINGLY LIED TO THEIR FACE!"

Sudden realization hit Steve like a truck. "Oh dear…."

As Asuka laughed evilly in the police car, Steve realized that, despite the fact that this was already a long night, the night was going to get even longer.

* * *

Author's Note: Another chapter done. Man, this one was long in its own right. Well, the next one will definitely be Zafina, because, well, the poll was kind of a failure. If you want to request which character will appear after the next chapter then just post it as a review or something. See you guys next time!


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